Eureka!!!!

Well if this blog had been written at the start of the day, it would have been perhaps been quite negative. But, in a bizarre twist of fate and as crazy as golf can be sometimes, my range session left me feeling amazing!! Seriously shocked by the way it went today.

Before I go any further, I'll discuss the events and the unsatisfying game I had in the week and I'll also admit that this is not intended as arrogant because I have had countless range sessions in which I have 'tonked' it and felt great only to play like a pillock on the course straight after.

To discuss my golf this week, I played Tuesday and Wednesday at Hollingbury. On tuesday I played pretty solid and shot a 73. The only thing I really did wrong was a soppy 3 putt and a push that caught the wind and went out of bounds. But it was effortless and typical of the kind of golf I can play.

Wednesday was a complete rollercoaster to be honest. When I look at the score, 78, I'm very unhappy. When I look at the way it was compiled, in hindsight it's pretty exciting. So what happened?
Well, after a perfect tee shot on hole 1, I proceed to hit a huge block to lose the ball, then a hook (with 7 iron!) and a duffed chip ultimately leading to an 8! Then I parred the next and proceeded to hit another enormous block off the 3rd tee, losing another ball. So, I started quad, par, double - a run of figures I can't say I ever remember pulling off before! To cut a long story short I dropped 2 more shots, yet stood on the last tee at only +5 for my round as I had also made 3 birdies! Then I lost the ball way left of the tee but birdied my second ball for +6! As I say the score was disappointing but the fact I battled so well to limit this to a 78 was a great sign!!
Anyways, I learned in a hurry that the 'rotating the wrists' thing is great when it works, but the misses are incomprehendible. The only thing I can do in this scenario is go to the range and 'search in the dirt'. My discovery today hopefully will yield great going forward. I believe I have sussed out my problems!!

So to todays session. Again I will bullet point these - this could be a blueprint for all struggles in future.
- Adopt my usual bent over spine angle.
- Conduct my swing via a shoulder turn back and then simply turn the shoulders back to where they started, maintaining my spine angle.
- With this, simply let the arms 'ride along' and do not let them get away or lift away from me. This was the key moment!!! Essentially it feels like my arms are way behind me. In fact, I experimented by feeling that my arms were as far behind me as I could get them - yet I did not push one shot because I was turning my shoulders!!!

Essentially, I believed I that all my problems with my backswing recently have come from me lifting my arms on my backswing! When I looked at this, I found that I felt terrible at the top when I did lift them, compared to perfect and passive when I didn't. It dawned on me that any lifting of my arms on the backswing would have to be replaced coming down. In other words, I am combining the 1ps and 2ps!! If I needed any help to convince myself:
- Every swing felt comfortable
- Every shot went straight
- This happened time after time after time!!!

It was so exciting, I have figured that any lifting of my arms gets me above plane and then I seem from there to be capable of any compensation and any shot possible. Keep my arms low, let them follow my shoulder, and then turn my shoulders through as hard as I want. This worked for pitching, drawing and fading, any shot I wanted to hit. I really can't wait to take this to the course now I seem to have the understanding of this. Only time will tell, but I feel like I have finally learned where I have been going wrong this whole time. Watch this space........