Today was a Friday so Patrick wanted to add something different. We started by working on the chipping motion but not putting my right knee completely behind my left knee. I do my normal setup but a lot slower and move my feet towards the target. I make sure to keep my spine angle and take the club back about 10% of the way. When doing this I should feel my elbows and forearms basically touching while my left elbow folds in and my right elbow folds in. This will cause me to feel like it is opening up my hands and the club face will feel completely open. From there, I am to chip the ball about 10 yards. No further.
I do that for five balls. Then, Patrick trains a little deeper in which the club goes back about 20%. With this exercise Patrick is starting to work on the wrist hinge by pressing down on the inside of my left hand. It is something he is doing subtly so I am not going to think about it. Once again, I am to keep my spine angle as I go back and then chip the ball about 20 yards. I do that for five balls.
Then, my final five balls of my warmup is to pitch the ball about 30 yards. With this, I go back until the club is almost parallel to the ground. Once again, same setup, same wrist hinge, my forearms feel like they are together and the club face feels open. I then use my right side to get back to the ball while my left elbow rolls forward. I hit some really good chips and pitches when doing this.
That is going to be my new warm up before I play any round of golf. No more simply going straight into the full swing. After warming up we continued to work on the full backswing and the downswing. I am really starting to feel my arms “connected” and the feel of my forearms basically touching each other on the backswing. At the top, it definitely feels like the club face is wide open, but it is square.
If I can turn and feel the club face open, I can really hit the right barrel shot quite well. It is still a process to feel the ball come out of the right barrel because I think it is going to go 30 yards right of the target. Once I get my full shoulder turn and can accept it comes out of the right barrel, I should be a decent golfer.
I played 18 holes with Jacob after my lesson with Patrick and had a lot of fun. When I can feel my elbows folding in and my hands opening up the club on the backswing, I hit it really well. There is still plenty of work to be done, but we are making progress.
UPDATE: It is now mid May 2021, Jacob has moved to Columbia, SC and I am still working on depth in the backswing and have started working on the left crease in the downswing. It has been quite the journey and I know way more about the golf swing than I would have ever imagined.
