Another Great Lesson
I spent the afternoon down at Sea Island today working with Jack Lumpkin. It was another very productive visit. He approved of my progress since our last lesson. My swing plane was exactly where he wanted it to be and my takeaway was much more “one-piece”. He said everything looked more “together”.
So, on to the next step. I had been forming my own opinions about what should be tackled next in my swing based on what I saw on Clubgolf’s video system. The two things that I noticed were the same two things he picked out independently…and, they were related to each other. This is all very exciting.
The first thing he saw is that my right knee is flexing too much and moving outside of my right foot on my backswing. This is partly due to my setup posture being a little off. It could also be due to the lack of internal rotation in my hip that Dave Maloney and I have been working on for the last couple of months. It’s difficult to say if the hip flexibility caused the swing fault or vice versa. I suspect that it’s a little of both. I was probably making my hip worse by putting the wrong stress on it during my backswing. Then, because my hip was stressed, I had to compensate and protect it with the swing fault. I suspect that the training I’m doing with Dave and the swing change will take care of the hip within a month.
The other thing is the angle of my shoulders on the backswing relative to my spine. Basically, my shoulder rotation was too “parallel” to the ground. My left shoulder needed to move more down than around in the backswing. As he explained it, my setup position and hip movement weren’t allowing my shoulders to turn in the proper plane. So, they’re all related. I should be able to address my setup position and right knee and, with a little concentration on my shoulder turn, everything should smooth out over the next couple of weeks.
The great thing about the swing changes is that the instant I made them my miss shifted from a hook to a fade. This is a much more manageable miss.
Jack also made a slight tweak in my putting (which already feels great since our last lesson). He moved my left hand grip a bit more toward my palm and raised my hands slightly. This felt much more stable.
We also worked some on my chipping. I’ve always been a “cut” chipper meaning I take the club back outside and cut across the ball at impact holding the face open. These mechanics make sense to me, especially under pressure. Basically, it allows me to take a larger swing for a given length chip. Since it’s a larger swing, it’s less of a finesse shot. In deep grass it also puts more clubhead speed on the ball for a given ball speed. Therefore, the clubhead is less effected by the grass. The problem is that my path wasn’t outside to in. It was outside to outside on the follow through. I was off the swing plane at impact and my follow through. This explained why I tended to mishit my chips thin. I got my plane right and my chips immediately were more solid.
Overall, it was another extremely productive lesson. I’m very excited about the next month leading into the beginning of the season. I feel more excited and motivated about this year than any of my previous years as a pro. A large part of this is because I have very clear and simple ideas about my swing and my training thanks to Jack and Dave.