[bray]

Spike,

Over the past couple of years I had the pleasure of running my own junior program. In fact this program was the catalyst to me becoming a full time teacher and moving up in the world of golf instruction as quickly as I did!!!!

The program ran eight weeks during the summer meeting three times a week. There was also a fall and spring program with private instruction available year round as well. The first year I taught 78 juniors and the second year I taught just over 100 juniors all ages 6-14, but pretty bottom heavy in the 6-10 group.

With the 6-10 to group I found the most success by teaching them the grip first with the main focus being the #1 and #3 pressure points being set up properly. I then taught them the chipping stroke: set up your lower case "y" at address with a flat left wrist, also known as impact fix, and then keep the left wrist flat back and through. From their I taught them the pitch stroke toe up to toe up with a flat left wrist......here is where it can get individual I let some students play the pitch from a impact fix hand position at address and I take some students back to standard address, but the focus is on gaining the flat left wrist through impact and into the toe up finish. I also use toe up to toe up to teach the student to start to rotate the club a little back and through (for older kids 10-14 I started to teach a hinge action). Then I go "L" again flat left wrist is the focus.

From here it gets fun once the student understands these basics you can have contests and get into countless variations of shots for trajectory and shape. I believe if a student develops a flat left wrist, solid chipping stroke, toe up, and "L" swing their golf swing will develop nicely. Also I should note here with some of the younger juniors I did not like having them stop at follow through on acquired motion because I don't believe they were strong enough and they tended to decel through impact but I did make sure that they had a flat left wrist through impact.

Just my thoughts on what worked for me.

Good luck with your program. Junior Golf is the most rewarding teaching I've done.

Sorting through the Instructor's Textbook.

B-Ray