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Thinking About Golf Lessons

Your game has gone sour. Nothing seems to bring improvement; regardless of any adjustments you make to your swing. Everyone you know wants to give you well meaning pieces of advice, but nothing works. Does that seem like you? This can happen to any type of golfer, no matter what handicap you have. Even tour pro’s go through barren periods. Just look at what has happened to Seve Ballersteros, at his height the best golfer in the world, but now a poor shadow of that player. Whilst he can still manage a score that most of the worlds golfing population would love to shoot, his high standard has gone.

So what can you do? Seek out professional advice? That makes Set up for an approch shot great sense. Except I know of a present day Tour Player who has visited all the recognised best teachers both home and abroad in the quest to find the successful formula he once had as a young star, but to no avail, he still lost his tour card. All of these teachers had different ideas on how the swing works, and tried to make him swing “their way” which only added to the confusion. For his part all he was looking for was a nugget of information to help restore confidence and get the swing back in the groove.

Another Senior Tour Pro once told me that whenever he started to practice after a winter break, in readiness for the start of the tour season, he always started shanking. But because his repetitive swing was so well grooved over the years, all he had to do was keep his head very still and the shots flowed correctly once more. Such a simple thing, yet for him it worked. So here lies the very essence of what golf should be all about. Keeping it simple!

This is the reason why you must have golf lessons the moment you think of taking up the game. To start off with sound advice and develop good swing habits that will last you a life time. Or, if an experienced player the moment you begin to feel your swing going wrong. Don’t just experiment; you will only finish up as an exasperated golfer. Go and seek out your teacher and fix the problem with a golf lesson. Golf is no fun playing poorly.

First try and find a reputable teaching pro. One with a few good years behind him, that has gained in experience by teaching so many different types of golfers. Try not to have lesson from the assistant pro. Many are well meaning but they are still learning their trade, which is why they charge less money for a golf lesson than the pro. Knowledge comes from experience. Many is the time a young assistant has tried to change, for example, a fifty year old high handicapper’s poorly coordinated swing into one that looks like a tour pro’s, by trying to make a body do what it is not capable of doing. A full 90° shoulder turn at the top of the back swing is fine in a supple person. But on someone with the wrong physical shape, it has no chance of becoming a natural movement and will only end in disaster. The player will not improve and quite often will stop having golf lessons altogether for fear of wasting time and good money. One method cannot work for all players. Not all players are either supple enough or coordinated enough to try to swing like a pro. But a good coach can modify any swing and improve upon it.

Now the important work starts. Set up with a driver Get the fundamentals correct. Grip, stance, posture, have them checked out and adjusted if necessary. Then proper pivot and weight transfer. Check that the club face is square through the swing, and that the hands work through the ball properly. Did I say keep it simple? Well that is what you pay a good professional to do. Hopefully he will check all of these things for you without you knowing what is really going on. Making a few simple alterations here and there during the lesson and giving you a couple of key things to take with you to the practice ground for you to work on during the coming weeks.

Never be afraid to ask to work on the clubs that give you the most problems. If your driver is going astray or you are hitting your long irons off the toe end of the blade, don’t spend a golf lesson hitting balls with short irons. That will only flatter you and your teaching pro, because with a bit of rhythm and timing we are all capable of hitting these shots well. Get your moneys worth by hitting with the problem clubs. Understand what the problem is. Hit bad shots deliberately. Hit exaggerated bad shots deliberately. If you can understand why they happen, then you are on the way to a cure. If you can deliberately hit one of your typically bad shots and understand why you did it on the practice ground and then follow it with a corrected swing to hit the good shot, you are well on the way to understand how to play better golf. My experience is that during our lifetime of golf we always revert back to our same natural bad swing. So if you understand what the problem is, then the cure is just a question of practice on the sound advice you have absorbed along the way, maybe with an occasional check over by your coach to make sure that you are working on good thoughts, and not on endless experimentation for a quick cure instead of through a series of structured golf lessons.