Today was a downswing day and it actually wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Much like last October, it is still very hot in the Raleigh area. It was in the mid 80s today. I remember last October we almost got into the 100s a few days. I am begging for a cool October one of these years.
We started out on the backswing and Patrick continues to turn my core while I basically squeeze my elbows together. That contraption where you put the ball between your arms is making more and more sense but as Patrick always likes to say, you need support and flexibility before you can turn and not use your arms.
If I can keep my body turning and allow my arms to be soft and my elbows to fall inside, I can really feel the torque stored up in the backswing. With the downswing, Patrick starts the swing by pushing down on my right hip, he then tells me to stop. This is something I could not do in the past as I did not have enough flexibility nor core strength to stop halfway through the downswing.
After stopping me, he pushes my right lat all the way to impact and through impact. I am getting much more flexible with this move and am actually starting to do it a little bit by myself. After impact my left elbow will be rolled towards the ground and the club will basically be parallel to the ground in front of my chest. From there, I need to keep the club where it is with my hands and drive under and through with my right side. For now, if I keep the club parallel I can really feel the turn with my right side as I drive through.
Every time I get depth on my backswing I hit the ball a little fat. In fact, I can feel the club turning as it hits the ground right before the ball and on the inside half of the ball. Patrick says this is fine as it is all timing because I have a much bigger shoulder turn. Tomorrow will be another downswing day which will be fun. We are getting more and more flexible every single lesson.
UPDATE: Wow. I thought I had it figured out back then and I really had no clue. It is now mid May 2021, I am almost at 275 lessons in and I am understanding all the parts of the swing Patrick has attacked for months. The setup, the sucking in of the stomach, the right lat driving as far around the body as possible, the crease of the right lower side. Ahhh, finally, it is all coming together. I can actually hit long irons the way they are supposed to be hit and we will likely move on to the driver in the next few weeks. All the work is starting to pay off.
