My lessons with Patrick have been extremely difficult lately. Today we really worked hard on the downswing and I thought I was doing good but my backswing felt very short. About a month ago I had to go through a week of Patrick allowing me to think my left lat was going behind me to the practice putting green. He didn’t address the crease, my right side collapsing or anything. I simply needed to get my shoulders turned. Well, I don’t have the deep shoulder turn feel again.
I go back and forth trying to get the damn crease to stabilize the right side but when I focus on that, my shoulder turn is non-existent. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. We still got some good work done but Patrick had to push my body into places rather than me getting my body into the right places.
On the downswing, he wants me to travel to get back to where the setup is. I have the habit of hanging back which is part of my check mark problem. We did quite a bit of work with him holding my left shoulder low and allowing me to travel with my upper body. He said it should feel like my left shoulder is actually going down all the way to and through impact. Once again, it feels like the right shoulder is higher than the left shoulder through the impact zone.
I wanted to play 9 holes today so I got out there and played the front 9. On hole #5 it was the closest I have ever been to just going back to my old swing and saying screw the idea of a rotational swing. I even played hole #6 with my old swing I was so frustrated. Of course, I shanked one. The reason I got so frustrated is I shanked two balls on hole #3 and lost a ball on hole #4. I was really in a bad place mentally. I somewhat settled down and realized I was getting zero depth on my backswing. Remember me trying to create the crease and make it go all the way up to my ribs. Well, when I do that, I don’t turn at all.
On hole #7 I got as big of a shoulder turn as possible and hit the ball over the green and into the water. I hit a few good shots on hole #8 focusing on getting much more depth in the backswing. Hole #9 was a debacle as I tried to hit a 7 iron and check marked three straight shots.
It was extremely frustrating to go through these 9 holes. Before my lesson Patick told me he wanted me to do 10 reps of the drill with the right hand under the left hand with a club in the left hand and work on the shoulder turn. When I did this, I had a very weak left wrist and grip and the club never hinged. I haven’t hinged the club with my left wrist in months as I have been focusing solely on turn.
When I hinge with the left hand with this drill (just after takeaway) it actually forces my left side to want to keep turning and get my left lat going around my body. Without the hinge of the left wrist, my right arm takes over, I lift and get no shoulder turn.
I am going to try to get those 9 holes out of my head and work on getting a deep shoulder turn with the left side by using the drill Patrick showed me. This drill also takes the right side completely out of the backswing which is clearly something I need at this stage.
We are approaching 300 lessons in and I am shanking the ball and can’t hit my 8 iron more than 135 yards. Lots of fun! I am trying my best to stay positive. Good luck to Patrick getting me to play in Park City by the end of the month.
