High Performance Golf Coaching For All

Ravenwood Golf Academy, Victor, NY 14564

Lower Scores
585 747 8871

Philosophy

The goal of Sean Lalley’s Coaching Programs is to create learning environments that foster sustainable long-term improvement for all players. I design detailed performance plans that lead to permanent change and lower scores.

4 Steps to Mastery

Step 1: Understanding Cause and Effect
Step 1 begins with assessment activities that identify your strengths and weaknesses. You’ll gain valuable understanding of the factors that are most contributing to your on-course performance. Personalized training plans are designed to address the areas of the game that will lead to lower scores. Ball Flight cause and effect is covered. And swing changes are made when your flawed mechanics or incorrect concepts are causing you to struggle with any of The Essential Skills of Golf, especially Ball Control. Unfortunately, Step 1 is where most traditional coaching begins and ends.

Step 2: Supervised Practice
Supervised practice entails more coaching than teaching. On this step, you’ll start to gain the ability to perform the Essential Skills of Golf through lots of repetition with just the right amount of feedback from me. During this step, you will practice with the deliberate intention of improving your golf skills.

Step 3: Transfer Training
Transfer Training is where you learn to bring your new skills to the golf course by introducing conditions that simulate those that you will experience on the golf course under competition. Transfer Training creates the opportunity for you to strive to build habits that can withstand the pressure and ever-changing conditions that you’ll experience on the course. Pushing the transfer onto the golf course is what it’s all about. I am very proud of the fact that nearly one-third of the coaching sessions I give are on the golf course! During these on-course coaching sessions, you’ll get the additional guidance in the skills of decision-making and self-management, while also making note of ball-control skills that are in need of further development.

Step 4: Play
Play is the Step on which you have few mechanical thoughts and are free to just see your shot and hit it. You may have a simple swing thought, or more likely a general feel of creating a shot. At this stage of your development, you will See the shot. Feel the shot. And Make the shot. Or as I like to say it: See it. Feel it. Do it. It takes a long time to reach this stage, and you will find that even the top players return to Step 3 on a regular basis.

Juniors

Golf is a game and it’s meant to be fun. My first priority is to create a fun and nurturing environment to learn the game of golf. I offer comprehensive juniors coaching programs that provides weekly structured practices to junior golfers of all ages and levels. Our ultimate goal is to train young athletes to compete at the highest levels and develop a lifelong love for the game of golf.

What is Long Term Development Training?

Research in sports science and kinesiology has shown that most players follow a familiar pattern to reaching a world class level in their sport. This pattern is outlined for golf in a book we would recommend for any parent of an aspiring junior golfer called High Performance Golf by Henry Brunton. Here are some highlights from the book:

Deliberate Practice – one area that we focus on here at the Academy is deliberate practice. Training aids like the plane board, impact station and MEGSA help a student ingrain fundamentals that they can use for a life time. In addition, having practice menus for putting, short game, wedges and full swing aids a student in quality practice time. Supervised practice sessions are also provided in our junior programs which are observed by all of our top instructors.
Stages of Development – we often get asked when should a student start focusing on golf. Here is one example:
The Sampling Years (ages 6-12) – this age range is encouraged to play multiple sports and develop general athleticism, this age is also the main ages for speed generationThe specializing years (ages 13-15) – this age range is encouraged to start playing one sport with more deliberate practice for their specified sportThe invest years (16 and over) – full commitment to one sport with highly skilled coaching.

How do you learn a skill?

The process of skill acquisition is a very misunderstood topic for many of our students. Dr. Rick Jensen states the steps of mastery of a skill as follows: Understanding Cause and Effect, Supervised Practice, Transfer Training, Play. These steps can never be skipped even by the best athletes.

    • Understanding Cause and Effect: our job as instructors and coaches are to help the students understand why the ball goes where it goes and a player’s tendencies.
    • Supervised Practice: a vital part to progress for a student is to have a practice plan where quality vs. quantity practice is emphasized. We do this by helping the student’s create practice stations, use the MEGSA and various training aids to provide feedback. Research has shown that students who have feedback when practicing will develop quicker then students without feedback.
    • Transfer Training: the driving range at the Academy is uniquely designed to help assist the player in transfer training from their practice station to the course with such tools as the Zone Poles*, the Red Paper Drill* and focusing on a player’s routine.
    • Play: every great player has a system for playing golf. This system starts with how they practice; to how they make and use yardage books, to the strategy they attack a course. The way a student practices should mirror their system for playing, something we work with our students on a regular basis.