It was a full week between lessons at PKU which is the longest I have gone in between lessons in quite some time. Today we cleaned up the chipping motion as over the “break” I really tried to get my right side through during the setup of the chipping motion. Patrick explained that this is great, now I just need to relax my left elbow which will bring the shaft plane in line with my zipper which we talked about last week. In essence, my hands should be lower but I do that by relaxing my left forearm and feeling my right elbow inside my right ribs. It feels super weird and scrunched up, but as Patrick has always said, we want depth, narrow, depth with the golf swing. Impact is narrow and it will feel very close to the body for amateurs that have always thrown their hands at the ball. Think Jon Rahm and Jim Furyk.
As I was practicing that, I can really feel my left core getting the club to the ball. It also helped me feel the left elbow “rolling” over at impact and the clubface facing the sky shortly after impact. And this happens without flipping the hands. It happens with the right side driving under and through and the left forearm being very soft and relaxed.
With this feel, Patrick then worked diligently on my backswing. We are still keeping the crease on the right leg and the inside of my groin. Patrick put an alignment stick across my chest in which I am supposed to hold it with my left hand as my right hand stays on the crease. He wants me to see the alignment stick go past my eyes with my shoulder turn on the backswing. This is a great visual to know if I am getting depth or not.
Patrick then turned me with my driver which is interesting because it is so much longer and I have to be more patient in the backswing. I am feeling my upper right side actually getting flatter and causing my entire back to be flat at the top of the swing. Some of this is aided with the practice chipping motion and my right side being “through” at setup.
I hit some of the best balls of my life today. Contact was unbelievably good and I was really getting deep in my backswing. I only ended up hitting about 15 balls but about 10 of them were really, really good.
My homework for tonight is to keep the crease while using an alignment stick to make sure it goes past my vision on the backswing. It was 70 degrees and breezy today which has been the nicest day of the year so far. Hopefully we can have a few more of these types of days in March.
