Hitting A Wall

It was lesson time yesterday and I'd been eagerly anticipating it for weeks as my game has drifted off. I'd already spoke with my teaching professional Paul Harrison about not wanting to make this winter all about radical rebuilds and to try and work within the limitations of my current swing whilst making sure the core fundamentals were all in place. So, not much to ask then.

I have to be honest and say when I got to Maidenhead Golf Centre and was forced to take my jumper off in the warm sunlight I was pretty envious of the usual cronies playing the Saturday roll up in such beautiful conditions. Still no pain, no gain and the swing needed attention. Having watched me hit a few the main focus was on posture. We'd spoken about the need for a good spine angle in the past but in trying to get this the spine angle was now too severe, almost like a ski ramp and I was leaning too far over from the hips.

We spent a lot of the lesson trying to get me to stand taller and pull the pelvis more underneath myself. This allows better rotation which was the other main focus. Too much leg action and sliding of the hips again. We ran through a couple of drills to really feel as though I'm turning and on top of the ball at impact and I can really fire the right hip through. A lot of the work was done in slow motion and really feeling the move and it wasn't until the end that we put the new posture and the better turn together and hit some balls. The changes were radical but so was the effect. Granted I was only hitting an 8 iron and I was prepared mentally before I hit it for it to go anywhere but if flew high and straight and felt very solid.

I finished off the bucket and really worked hard at getting the feeling entrenched. The remaining balls were all pretty good and I left a very happy man. Today though wasn't a great day. I went back to the range full of confidence but the results were not good. I am feeling the turn still but cannot replicate the straight back and tucked in pelvis feeling that was such a natural position twenty four hours ago. Fortunately Paul was on hand and we spent a few moments working on the posture again. I'm driving the wife nuts posing with a club in front of mirrors looking for something that resembles the correct starting point. It has to be right as it is what is really driving the new turn and without it, the hips still slide and frankly it goes to pot.

I've got the hump as I can usually take changes from a lesson and they click into place (until I forget and old habits creep back in) but this posture is like hitting a wall. It really doesn't feel right or look right.

Waiting for that light bulb moment to flash in my golfing brain

The stupid thing was I wandered up to the practice ground at Royal Ascot yesterday afternoon and hit a few wedge shots with the new set up and everything was hunky dory and going well so I'm not sure where it all went in the space of twenty four hours. The logic in me says the posture was wrong for so long it is just taking time to get the body use to feeling different over the ball and trusting it. The pragmatist says I haven't really grabbed the concept and there is work to do. All I know is there is a lot of time to be put in every evening this week at the range to try and get something to click so I can go out and play next weekend.

So was it worth it? It's hard to say at the moment although I do feel I've taken a few steps backwards and things aren't clicking as they should. However I trust what Paul is doing and know that when we get this starting position and impact position firing properly it is going to reduce the amount of excessive movement in the swing and make it much more compact. I guess it's a waiting game and maybe I'm just being impatient. Time will tell.