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1 Oct 2021 admin

Student Spotlight – Lucas Lemer

By Tony McMully, USGTF Professional

Lucas Leamer is a golf success story. And his story continues to be written. Lucas, a senior this year, attends Cincinnati Hills Christian High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been an accomplished member of the swim team there since he was a freshman. He has been a district qualifier every year and is a leader on his team. He loves swimming competitively, but came to golf after an injury in the summer before his junior year made him begin to question whether swimming was the right sport for him. Enter the golf success story.

Lucas came to me in August of 2019, looking to learn how to play golf in hopes of maybe making his team as a junior the next year. I have to admit that, once he told me he had never actually played golf, I was skeptical of how this would turn out. Turns out, I had no idea who I was about to teach!

The first thing I did was to inform Lucas that this would take work – a lot of work! He responded with almost no emotion, the way he still does when I ask him to do something, “Okay, Coach,” and we went to work. Long story made short, he came in every week, prepared for his lesson, homework from the week before completed, and ready to work. It didn’t take very long for me to see that this kid had talent, a ridiculously good work ethic, and a drive to succeed! He started to play in summer tournaments, but had little success, if any, at first. I explained to him that golf is a difficult sport to play well in under pressure at first. He simply nodded yes that he understood, and then worked harder at the fundamentals of ball striking, short game, and putting. Then came tryouts for his high school golf team. I got a text after the third day of tryouts and to my surprise, it simply said, “Made the team. Thanks Coach!” When I saw him for his lesson later that week, he said, “I made the team. Now I want to work harder than everyone else to be the number one golfer on my team.” He has become the hardest working and most focused junior golfer that I’ve ever taught in 20+ years as a professional instructor.

Lucas has climbed the ladder to the position he chased so hard. He is the number one varsity golfer at Cincinnati Hills Christian. His highlights include shooting a 35 (-1) in a nine-hole match and shooting a personal best 75 at the Hadley Invitational for a 9th-place finish. And he continues to write history for a kid who got out of the pool to play golf!

Teaching “PRO” File – Dr. Sharon Barley

(Editor’s note: Dr. Sharon Barley earned her USGTF certification in 2015 and has an impressive resume and backstory. In addition to being an accomplished golf instructor, she is a minister with a doctorate in minister theology and arts. She is a golf teaching professional at Manor Golf Course in Reading, Pennsylvania, and works for Setup 4 Impact Golf. She is also a U.S. Kids Golf certified teacher and works with The First Tee. Her experience in the ministry also allows her insight into a golfer’s mind that is unique to the golf teaching profession. Here is her story.)

Over the last ten years, I was on a quest to learn diverse swing mechanics by studying some top professional golfers and coaches. Among so many variables, I found one key area that made the difference between a golfer who continued to improve and those who never improved. That difference is the “impact position.” Golfers who continued to improve their scores were more consistent at impact. Coaching the impact position capitalizes on your natural swing, tailored to your body type, flexibility, balance and physical abilities.

I earned a black belt in Kung Fu at 22, then picked up archery in college. After making four U.S. Olympic Festival teams, I won the gold medal in archery at age 27. I played golf in high school and continued casually while serving in clergy ministry. As an athlete and minister, I set my life goal on inspiring others to be their best self. But after years of playing golf, coaching and training hard, I couldn’t achieve my own best self in golf and continued to be inconsistent and stagnant in my scores. Then I discovered a training methodology, taught by Kirk Junge, uniquely focused on a one-plane swing into the impact position, while using the best in sports psychology and the body/brain connection. As I practiced his drills over months, through our Pennsylvania winters and afterward, I discovered that my accuracy, distance and consistency improved dramatically within just a four-month time period. I knew I wanted to teach his methods.

Now, not only am I the NE/Eastern Regional Instructor for Setup4Impact Golf Schools, but also will be the golf teaching pro for a new business launch combining indoor golf with golf fitness, “InJoy Golf,” in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. My long-time career in clergy has given me tremendous insight into the mental game and spiritual nature of golf (the inner game) that often drives performance and outcomes.

Dr. Sharon Barley, USGTF Certified Teaching Professional, Denver, PA

Student Spotlight – Kauner Kay

By Dillon Fay, USGTF Professional

Kauner Kay is the reigning youth boys (10-13 years old) Amateur Long Drive world champion and a three-time Utah state long drive champion. Teaching the sport of long drive is my emphasis, and Kauner is an absolute grinder! When I started working with him last June, he had a clubhead speed of 115 mph, which is incredibly fast for a kid his age. Since he began working with me, I have got him up to a new high clubhead speed of 143 mph. That is a 28 mph gain in just under a year, and he has a maximum ball speed of 195 mph! Kauner is now 15 years old and hits it farther than every PGA Tour pro, including Bryson DeChambeau.

Simply put, he is the fastest swinging teenager on planet Earth, and he would gladly put that to the test against anyone. He never misses practice and he has his eyes set on redemption this year to win both the junior boys national and world titles. Since he is so far ahead of his competition in the junior division, he is now competing against the men. In the men’s amateur division at the two PLDA (Pro Long Drivers Association) events he has competed in, he has placed 5th and 3rd (missing out on the finals by 5 yards), and had a personal record drive of 377 yards. He got to hit side-by-side and became friends with some of the biggest names in the sport such as Kyle Berkshire (2019 WLD world champion) and Justin James (2017 WLD world champion).

On the tournament-golf side of things, he had the best season of his life last year when he took 3rd in a local PGA junior championship and shot a personal record twice in competition, including a final-day 73 as a freshman at the Utah high school playoffs to help him finish individually in the top 10 in the state.

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