Lesson #67 – August 2nd, 2019

“You just have to pull up!” Over the last few days I have practiced my backswing knowing that it is getting better and better. I was topping balls, hitting them sideways and almost swinging and missing at the UNC Finley driving range. Somewhere along the way, I figured out that the feel of the backswing is to start with your left hip going down, then you pull up starting with your upper thigh and then going into your lower left obliques then into your lat and all the way up to your upper lat. You pull up.

You do the exact same thing on the downswing. Once at the top, you feel a pull up in the upper thigh that moves into the lower right obliques and goes all the way into the lat and upper lat. The more you can pull up, the more you can get depth in the backswing and the follow through.

The “pull up” feel also allows me down cock at the top with my wrist. When I first started to do this, it felt like my heels were coming off the ground. Patrick quickly addressed that.

So, upon telling Patrick that I just needed to “pull up” he simply laughed and said, “I know what you mean, but don’t tell anyone else that.” After showing him what I meant he explained that my “pull up” is expansion and getting depth. He quickly cleaned it up by starting to allow my right elbow to be more passive while pulling up with my left side on the backswing.

On the downswing, I tend to slide forward a little bit. If I can stay “in the barrel” and go under and then pull up with my left shoulder holding off, I can feel the coming under that Patrick has always talked about.

At this point, my arms and legs are trying to figure out what to do, but I am very excited about finally getting the feel of the left side creating the backswing and the right side driving through the down swing. I am still not hitting the ball well, but the transition from the top feels much better as I start the “pull up” with my lower right side.

My issue right now is the fact that I have never been that low at impact. When I get halfway to the ball on my down swing, I stand up. Patrick said this is normal and will take a few weeks to get used to. Even though I am not hitting the ball well, I am very excited to continue practicing the pull up feel to get to the top of the backswing and the pull up to get through the ball.

There will be many, many hours of practice getting the feel at impact. I figure it will take a few weeks to finally stay down all the way through impact and come out, under on the other side.

UPDATE: Well, that whole idea of “pull up” is one way to think about it, but it is much more effective for me to think about pulling in with the right side while driving with the left side on the backswing. I can definitely see how some would think a pull up would help with depth on the swing though. With over 165 lessons in as of October 2020 I really don’t have many swing thoughts at all when it comes to the backswing. I simply need to get deep enough to feel the leverage with my shoulder angle and upper body.

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