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This week’s lesson involves a talented junior, Samyra Lewis, who came to me through the good will of another of my long time students, Kevin Hawkins, who saw Samyra practicing one day and took it upon himself to offer to pay for lessons with me. I have been seeing Samyra for about six months, and while she has certainly improved her overall game I have not been able to improve her ballstriking to the level I think she can attain. When I teach juniors I always am at a loss as to just how fast they will pick up the information and how able they will be to change their technique for the better. Of course, it is always a pleasant surprise when swing changes are easy to accomplish, but usually when we get down to the really stubborn, difficult to change swing issues the progress comes in small increments over time.
With Samyra the battle has been to get her to lean the shaft forward at impact with her irons, and here you can see the problem that exists in her first couple swings. We have focused on this in the past, but I always say that the lesson (any lesson) starts with the swing the student brings, and in this case it was obvious what we had to work on. As you will see, I focused on drills that would get her to experience the correct strike of the ball, and as you will also see she accomplishes what we are looking for in the drills. I explained to her that the strike of the punch shot is the same as that of the full swing, and my suggestion was to intersperse the drills with full shots so that she could try to emulate the same compressing strike in the full swing. This is a necessary advancement for any player, and it must be worked on until it is fully in the swing.
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