Find Lesson #1 information here.
We added a second element to my stance and posture during lesson #2. Patrick wanted me to angle my shoulders and the club at about 15 degrees away from the target when standing over the ball getting ready to address it. In essence, we dropped the back shoulder just a tad at address. We also made certain the club face is square as the shoulders are angled. At this early stage in the process, Patrick did not touch on the grip other than making certain my left hand is strong meaning I could feel my left hand “pushing” down on the club with my palm.
We continued to work on posture but we started to talk about the backswing. Patrick put me in the correct position on the backswing and it felt so very weird. Honestly, it felt like my shoulders and head were way too far over the ball meaning the ball was closer to my armpits. I know this is not what is really happening, but it is definitely what it looks like from my eyes.
There was also quite a bit of pull on the left side of my body at the top of the backswing. There is absolutely no way I could figure out how to get to that spot without Patrick telling me, moving my body and walking me through it.
It felt like he was pushing my left hip to start, then my arms went halfway back before they start to go up. As they started going up, there was the feel of “lifting”. I was a very armsy golfer prior to starting to work with Patrick so now all these movements feel foreign because I was used to lifting with my arms rather than using my core to rotate my body.
A practice drill to get to the top of the backswing was to put your hands across my chest with my left hand on my right shoulder and my right hand on my left shoulder. I then would rotate back with my left lat and left side to get all the way to the top of the backswing. Because I did not have a club in my hand, I wouldl think more about the turn than where the club is.
For the first time, Patrick started talking about the importance of the core and how that will affect the golf swing. He didn’t go into details, just touched on it.
The main focus was to continue to work on posture for another week while still only hitting 8 irons. Patrick was on vacation over the next week so I was left with all these swing thoughts in my own time. It could have been bad and likely was.
UPDATE: It is amazing how little I understand about the take away, shoulder turn and backswing. We are now over 100 lessons in and I am still learning some of the finishing touches of the backswing. It is crazy to think he moved my body into the correct positions during Lesson #2 and I still can’t put my body in the correct position after 101 lessons.
For all the amateurs out there that think they don’t “lift” the club with their hands, they are wrong. No matter how much you think you are using your core, you very likely are not using it at all and definitely not enough. Unless your arms are weightless through the entire swing, you are using them.
