Yesterday, I made the 4-hour trip from Aiken, SC down to Sea Island, GA to spend some time with Jack Lumpkin. This was one of the most productive lessons I’ve ever had. We worked on the full swing first and identified a few fundamental things that I need to improve. First, I need to have a more “one-piece” takeaway. I’ve been setting my wrist cock very early. His experience is that most players do not set their wrists early. Occassionally he will find a player that sets it early AND correctly. In this case, he doesn’t see it as a problem. I, however, set it early and this causes me to get outside and off plane. Getting outside and off plane has been one of my primary swing flaws that I’ve fought for the last several years. When I take it away in one piece, I stay on plane without any effort. This alone is very encouraging, but there’s more. Taking it away in one piece makes my swing arc wider. My swing arc had been too narrow…again something I’ve fought for a while. Because I scribe a wider arc, my swing doesn’t have to be as long to achieve the same circumference (arc-length) in my backswing. So, I can shorten my swing to maintain control without losing any distance. The way that I shorten my swing and gain control is another change he asked me to make. The pressure points in my grip needed to be changed to very specific areas. I’m putting more grip pressure in the smallest two fingers of my left hand and in the palm of my right hand. My right palm should press my left thumb down against the grip. This promotes me retaining my width at the top of the swing and gives me a lot more control of my wrist cock. Translation: no power loss and much better control. So, I started working on it today and it’s a substantial change. Divots were shallower and ball flight was generally lower. I didn’t hit a lot of shots well, but the ones that I did were very impressive. At this point, it’s mostly just drills anyway. I expect this type of change to take most of the off-season to really feel natural.
We also spent a surprisingly short amount of time on my putting. This was the aspect of my game that was bothering me the most. I hadn’t felt like my putting was up to my standards for about two years. He identified a flaw in my setup that was causing all of my problems. He said there was nothing he would change about my stroke. This is a major vote of confidence coming from someone who helps established tour players. The setup problem was very simple. I was addressing the putt with my hands too far forward. This established an anchor point for my stroke around my left shoulder. If I had stroked the putt and maintained that anchor point, I would have contacted the ball with zero or negative loft on my putter. The optimum loft is 4 or 4 1/2 degrees and good putters instinctively try to attain this launch angle to get the best roll on their putts. So, being a good putter, I was releasing the putter early on my downswing in order to move my anchor point to my sternum and impact the ball with the proper loft. This works when I time the early release absolutely perfectly…something very difficult to do especially under pressure. So, today I spent a few hours with my hands sitting under my sternum and my stroke feels the best it’s felt in years. I feel like my stroke is smoother, especially in the transition from back to forward swing. I feel like I hit the putt more consistently solid and can control distance very easily. I also feel like direction is a lot easier to control. I am very, very excited about this!
I feel like yesterday’s lesson was exactly what I needed to focus my efforts for the coming season. I have a lot of confidence about how I want to change my swing and putting stroke and how these changes will allow me to score better.
I have a video of the entire lesson (unfortunately it’s on VHS right now). Once I convert it to digital format, I will post images that highlight what we worked on and the changes I’m going to make.
