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“I played in college at Eastern Illinois University graduating in 2001. I played the mini-tours in Scottsdale, AZ for 3 years after graduating, having little success. I have been a career amateur for the past 6 years. I have qualified for 4 USGA Mid AM’s, was Runner up in the 2012 Illinois State Am, and Runner up in the 2014 IL Mid Am. I enjoy the amateur circuit and play several Mid Am events around the country including the Champions Cup in Houston, the Carlton Woods Invite in Houston, etc.
I have studied your website and watched many videos. A struggle I fight is across the line in the backswing. I prefer to play a fade but hit some draws but not many. Under pressure a fade is my go to shot. I have been working on stacking up the left side as in the past I would get stuck on my right side spinning out of shots.”
This was the email Derek sent me back in November when he sent some swings in for an online lesson. He decided to take a trip down to South Florida to see me face to face (who can blame him? It’s 80 in Florida and 10 in Illinois) and I thought the 3 hours were very productive. The best thing about in person lessons is that I have the ability to put my hands on the student to get them to feel what I would like them to try. I can also show them the change (or lack of change) immediately by continual use of the camera. Derek’s strong suit is his down swing in that he can put the club on the ball after compensating for the positions he gets in going back, so I figured if I could help him clean up and improve his trigger movement, takeaway and backswing that we would see immediate changes in his approach to impact. I think you will see that once we changed his posture and balance and quieted down his takeaway we were able to keep the club from crossing the line, especially with stop and go drills. In the end his approach to impact, which had been with the hands coming in high and moving hard down and left through the ball, became much more arced on the plane, allowing the club to approach more shallow and the face to rotate freely instead of having to hold it off well past impact.
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