Improvement: Peter Procops, PGA Part 4

This is a series of lessons that begins in July 2013 to present and will continue as long as new lessons occur. Peter is a fellow PGA professional who played the South American tour (Tour De Las Americas) for 5 years and Golden Bear Tour (Mini Tour) 5 years 1997-2001. I asked Peter, and he was gracious enough, to comment on his lessons and give everyone some insight on what he went through to get to where he is now. The hope is that anyone watching and reading can be encouraged to keep working as they witness what can be accomplished. Click here to start at the beginning of the series. Each video has a link to the next so you can easily progress through them.
 
This lesson the first thing I focus in on is the lack of width in the backswing caused by the pinched right arm. I want to see some width and space under the right arm. I use some footage of Ben Hogan as an example of what I’m wanting Peter to do. The second thing I see is Peter resisting with his left leg. I want him to let the left leg move a bit with the wind up of his torso. That should free him up a bit and may even take a bit of stress off his back. Peter is flattening the shaft nicely in transition but it needs to steepen right away or risk getting stuck. I pull up a couple more videos of Ben Hogan to help explain the progression I want to see from Peter.
 
Peter’s Commentary:
 

As I started to gain more knowledge of what Wayne was teaching me I thought it was going to be easier. But initially sometimes the more you know the worse it gets. I looked forward every day to getting on the range and working on it, but the golf course was a different story for now. I was missing with the driver both ways and was still too mechanical.
 
The two biggest challenges of this lesson was my right arm and trying to steepen my shaft on the downswing.
I had worked years trying to keep my right arm in on the take away from previous teachers. But between watching Wayne’s videos of Hogan and other great players I was convinced I needed more width with my right arm on the takeaway. I worked on taking swings with my right hand choked down on the grip to the top to improve this.
 
I hit balls with a towel under my left upper armpit to keep my hands from getting too far from me at impact. The feeling was more one piece to the finish. I worked more with high irons in the beginning working my way down because hitting with a shorter shaft achieved this.
 
As a junior I always played with the little cut that lost a lot of power. But as I got older I got into the habit of shallowing the shaft to create a draw. Overtime, the movement got exaggerated and trying to steepen the shaft was difficult.
To correct it I would go to the top, pause, and in slow motion feel myself lowering, my head going towards the ball and forced the shaft to steepen on downswing, hitting cuts, swinging left.
 
PP

 
Click here for part 5
 

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