Anticipate how your student will react both physically and mentally when you’re in the process of changing the golf motion.
I feel this to be one of the most important steps in avoiding a disaster when it comes to changing your students’ motion. A student will unknowingly fight any change in motion that does not allow them to feel as though they can hit the ball straighter and or up in the air. You must work on the students’ swing in an order that allows the student to understand and feel that his motion will improve his ball flight performance. I do not believe you have to go backwards to go forwards.
Let your understanding of ball flights guide you in your decision of what comes first in your lesson plan with that particular student. Fix the students ball flight first. The student does not need to work on consistency or camera correct positions until after he can easily understand and adapt to a correct ball flight. If you can get a student to improve his ball flight first the student will not fight future swing changes. The ball flight fix through good instruction of the principals and preferences I call neutralizing the students motion. If you can get a student to this point then you will be able to focus on positions or motions of improvement for consistency. Again, too many times an instructor will look at the golf swing in the order of the swing (backswing, transition then finish). If you have a student that has a poor ball flight say slicing the ball but at the top of the backswing the club face is hooded the student will feel uncomfortable with changing the clubface more open. The student would feel as though he would slice it more. From the closed club face if you can get the ball to actually over draw or pull (change his ball flight according to club face) the student will trust the changing of the club face at a later date.
It seems to me that almost ever first lesson can start with observing the students ball flight not necessarily so called correct positioning. Yes, you might get that rare student that is already neutralized in their ball flights which allow you to train in consistency. However, you can make the subsequent lessons with that student a lot more enjoyable for both of you if you can get them to understand their correct ball flight first.
Source
2007 SCPGA Section Program
