Prevailing Instruction vs Enjoying Golf

[iacas]

20 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

Mentioned this in another thread, but as difficult as golf may be, there's something missing in too much of the fundamental instruction players receive from many teachers causing it to be far more difficult than necessary. Why are there players who take lessons for months, watch the videos their instructors give them, and hit multiple times a week who still don't have a sound grip, stance, and setup? I took lessons from multiple PGA teaching professionals and was drowned in information without those keys ever being established as they should have been. I fixed my grip myself when the light went on one day that something was off; the YouTube rabbit hole I went down on that alone is insane. How can there be so many poor explanations on how to form a sound grip? 

 

Because you had bad instructors? There are plenty of them out there.

 

7 hours ago, Zitlow said:

If you don't like the prevailing golf instruction just wait a couple months and it will change. 

 

Squat move, motorcycle move, shallowing move, re-center move, power shift move, drop the arms move, swing the arms move, cast the club move, pull the left arm move, turn the left hip move, lead with right elbow move, left arm off chest move, unfold right arm move, shaft lean move and others which I can't think of at the moment.

 

That's a bit bogus. Topics become en vogue a bit… but I've taught some of the things I teach now for as long as I've been teaching, and the other stuff I'd describe as refined versions, updated versions. Not "new" things or chasing what's "hot" at the moment.

[PedronNiall]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

Because you had bad instructors? There are plenty of them out there.

I had bad instructors. Friends had bad instructors. Family. Coworkers. Golf acquaintances. On and on. To repeat, it's odd to me that accredited PGA Teaching Professionals so often miss on teaching foundations that will build consistent swings. I don't expect someone to go to soccer camp and come out as Messi, but the norm of what happens in golf is the equivalent of people coming out of said camp not even knowing how to dribble or make a simple pass to another player. The things that would let someone knock around a ball with friends and have a good time. 

 

Now hey, handicaps have trended down decently, but they're likely to be kept by more serious players and from looking at numbers only about 10-12% of people who play keep one up. Most are just looking to have fun and IMO it would be nice if it weren't so hit or miss in finding instructors who teach the basics that will make that happen. 

[PedronNiall]

2 hours ago, Nels55 said:

Easiest swing is Brian Sparks?  I read his book a few years ago and watched a ton of his videos and also Julian Mellor.  That stuff did not work for me at all.  There is no one universal swing that works for everyone. 

 

I think that Mike Adams is on the right track with measuring and testing folks to find the best grip and swing for them.  Whatever that swing, setup and grip that is found for a particular student there will be a tour pro who is similar that the student can look at for inspiration.  He says that there are no outliers and that teaching the mythical average tour swing to average golfers is a recipe for disaster.

 

Anyway we disagree a lot here but I certainly respect your viewpoint and in the end you could be right, LOL I ain't no expert!

 

Have you checked out Ron Sisson's videos on youtube?  Same sort of approach that you are advocating and pretty entertaining.

No doubt that to an extent it's different strokes for different folks. More keen on the idea of instructors making sure new players get a simple, straightforward foundation they can build on. Also on the ideas being clear enough that new players or those looking to fix issues can understand quickly if they're improving or not without second guessing themselves because there's so much being thrown at them. 

 

On the grip note, Easy Swing & friends do discuss grip adjustment after starting with one that's neutral and straightforward, but if their style didn't click for you certainly no harm. Good to find what gets you where you want to be. 

 

Checked out Sisson after your mention and I'd say yes, that's the kind of thing I'm advocating for: start simply, then refine. No 25 positions, no loading of the trail side, no perfect angles, no lead arm must be firm as the Rock of Gibraltar, just three simple pieces to get players started. His before & after videos were pretty wild. I think a lot more people would enjoy the game if that's how they got going day, week, or even month one, let alone before even finishing a single lesson. Appreciate you pointing him out. 

[Tanner25]

If you are seeking something simple and repeatable (for the irons and fairways), the punch shot. You get reasonable and consistent results without thinking too much.

Edited June 13, 2023 by Tanner25

[iacas]

17 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

I had bad instructors. Friends had bad instructors. Family. Coworkers. Golf acquaintances. On and on.

 

There are, unfortunately, a lot of bad instructors out there.

 

There are also a lot of bad students, but I'm not assuming they are among them. I have a pretty direct correlation between the students that I work with who practice (not a ton) and those who just go out and play golf. The quantity of the latter drops every year, as I talk with them more often now about what it takes to improve at golf. It takes more than just showing up for a lesson and trying to do what I ask of them at full speed.

 

17 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

To repeat, it's odd to me that accredited PGA Teaching Professionals so often miss on teaching foundations that will build consistent swings.

 

I'm a PGA member, but I'll be the first to tell you… the PGA barely teaches you anything about teaching the golf swing, and what they do teach you… I often dislike or disagree with. I would be just as good at my job if I wasn't a PGA member.

 

17 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

I don't expect someone to go to soccer camp and come out as Messi

 

Let's be clear here too… virtually every other sport is much, much simpler at the recreational level than golf. And, honestly, in talking with high-level hitting coaches, pitching coaches, bowling coaches, etc… it remains simpler (the gap narrows a bit) at the highest levels, too. Golf is pretty freaking difficult: we need to have very high accuracy in all sorts of directions while swinging a long stick (but hitting a spot that's OFF the stick) at 80 to 110 MPH.

 

17 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

but the norm of what happens in golf is the equivalent of people coming out of said camp not even knowing how to dribble or make a simple pass to another player. The things that would let someone knock around a ball with friends and have a good time.

 

That's your experience, and while I doubt that… that's not universal. That diminishes the good work of many (not the majority, perhaps) of instructors/coaches out there.

 

Golf is hard.®

 

17 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

Most are just looking to have fun and IMO it would be nice if it weren't so hit or miss in finding instructors who teach the basics that will make that happen. 

 

Again… golfishard.com. It is. And the somewhat sucky thing is… there's really no shortcut to doing it well.

 

I've had really good success with my three-lesson "beginner" package. But… all of the above about the accuracy and speed and all of that required still holds. Golf is ridiculously difficult. Sometimes I wonder why anyone takes up the game at all. Or how we can play it as well as we do.

[betarhoalphadelta]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

Let's be clear here too… virtually every other sport is much, much simpler at the recreational level than golf. And, honestly, in talking with high-level hitting coaches, pitching coaches, bowling coaches, etc… it remains simpler (the gap narrows a bit) at the highest levels, too. Golf is pretty freaking difficult: we need to have very high accuracy in all sorts of directions while swinging a long stick (but hitting a spot that's OFF the stick) at 80 to 110 MPH.

 

 

Yeah, I think teaching rec-level soccer is like teaching long division. Teaching golf is like teaching multivariate calculus. 

 

And IMHO the problem with *some* instructors is that being able to do it is a lot different than being able to explain/teach it. I suspect that some talented golfers become PGA Professionals because they're good at golf but not good enough to earn a living playing it, but they may not be talented TEACHERS of the subject. 

 

I'm an engineer. I'm naturally good at math. Most of the people that go into my field are naturally good at math. But if you've ever been around engineers... Well, them trying to explain an engineering concept that comes almost naturally to them to a layman is frustrating for both. It's never been "hard" for them, so they don't know how to teach it to someone who finds it hard. 

 

I'm an outlier in that I really LOVE the teaching/explanation stuff. Which is why my job now is presenting complicated technical concepts to customers, and writing tech briefs / white papers explaining complicated technical concepts to people who may not be laymen (i.e. most are fairly technical people who buy our products), but who aren't living and breathing the intricacies of data storage like I do every day. 

 

Finding an instructor who not only understands the golf swing but can COMMUNICATE to a student how to improve their own swing is hard. And given that most students don't know what they don't know, most students can't even tell if the instructor isn't good. Not everyone--or even very many--are geeking out on golf swing intricacies like we do here on WRX. 

 

But it's also not exactly fair to say "grip/stance/setup" and everyone's just gonna dig it out of the dirt either. 

[Petethreeput]

It's easy to blame the instructor, but it isn't always the instructor.

 

My wife is taking lessons this year and she is more frustrated playing golf now than she was beforehand, but she is also a significantly better player.  She gets together with the pro, she hits some balls, the are either good/not good, the pro makes a few tweaks.  She starts to hit the ball really well.  He explains why he is recommending the tweaks and she leaves knowing if she has that same problem again she knows how to fix it.

 

Well, as a high handicapper you can have the same miss from a myriad of issues.  She goes to "the fix" but the fix isn't the fix she needs on that day.  After a few shots and little to no improvement she gets frustrated.  She also has a check list at set up, then she has a list of her most likely swing faults, and then she has the list of the fixes.  She is a beginner and they don't always match up.

 

If I were to blame anything it would be expectations. Not the instructor, not even her because there is no way you can ask a beginner taking lessons to not have expectations of improvement even though we know improvement has plateaus.  I think your friend sounds like the person who may not have the personality for golf, or hasn't been warned it is a slow trajectory and improvement oftentimes isn't obvious.

[iacas]

33 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

But it's also not exactly fair to say "grip/stance/setup" and everyone's just gonna dig it out of the dirt either. 

Oh yes. I bumped on that part too but forgot to comment. I agree; most people are NOT going to figure it out given static stuff like setup.

[RoyalTroon]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

.... Golf is pretty freaking difficult....

 

....Golf is hard.®....

 

....Golf is ridiculously difficult....

 

Again...golfishard.com

 

The game is not anywhere near as hard as you are trying to sell it to be when you finally determine how difficult it can be.      Are you a site sponsor?   I think promotional plugs are not allowed unless it's under a sponsorship, but golf forums are hard so not sure if it's allowed.

[Zitlow]

1 hour ago, BALLYBUNION said:

 

The game is not anywhere near as hard as you are trying to sell it to be when you finally determine how difficult it can be.      Are you a site sponsor?   I think promotional plugs are not allowed unless it's under a sponsorship, but golf forums are hard so not sure if it's allowed.

Dazzle them with brilliance or baffle them with bullxxxx. I read that the AMG guy charges $10,000 a day, 

 

 

[PedronNiall]

7 hours ago, iacas said:

 

There are, unfortunately, a lot of bad instructors out there.

 

There are also a lot of bad students, but I'm not assuming they are among them. I have a pretty direct correlation between the students that I work with who practice (not a ton) and those who just go out and play golf. The quantity of the latter drops every year, as I talk with them more often now about what it takes to improve at golf. It takes more than just showing up for a lesson and trying to do what I ask of them at full speed.

 

 

I'm a PGA member, but I'll be the first to tell you… the PGA barely teaches you anything about teaching the golf swing, and what they do teach you… I often dislike or disagree with. I would be just as good at my job if I wasn't a PGA member.

 

 

Let's be clear here too… virtually every other sport is much, much simpler at the recreational level than golf. And, honestly, in talking with high-level hitting coaches, pitching coaches, bowling coaches, etc… it remains simpler (the gap narrows a bit) at the highest levels, too. Golf is pretty freaking difficult: we need to have very high accuracy in all sorts of directions while swinging a long stick (but hitting a spot that's OFF the stick) at 80 to 110 MPH.

 

 

That's your experience, and while I doubt that… that's not universal. That diminishes the good work of many (not the majority, perhaps) of instructors/coaches out there.

 

Golf is hard.®

 

 

Again… golfishard.com. It is. And the somewhat sucky thing is… there's really no shortcut to doing it well.

 

I've had really good success with my three-lesson "beginner" package. But… all of the above about the accuracy and speed and all of that required still holds. Golf is ridiculously difficult. Sometimes I wonder why anyone takes up the game at all. Or how we can play it as well as we do.

Fair points overall. Good to get confirmation that I'm not just a loon when it comes to not seeing enough emphasis on how to instruct as part of the path to becoming a teaching professional. Really do wish there was more of it so anyone could go to a PGA Teaching Professional and get the right building blocks in a relatively straightforward fashion. 

 

I agree fully that golf is obscenely hard all things considered. Sisson's method that another reply pointed me to shows that more could be done to get beginners making passable swings early on to get them off on the right foot, especially regarding having fun, but it's also undeniable that his almost innate understanding about how the swing is made through relatively short trial-and-error isn't the norm. It's a wonder that even the people who came up with golf kept at it or that others ever took it up, but once the golf bug bites it bites.

 

I guess part of the problem is that a lot of the current model emphasizes the business/revenue potential of teaching, successfully so ad far as I can tell. There are great ads like the one with Morikawa suggesting people look up a local pro, but it sucks that if they follow through the odds appear to be at least somewhat higher that they'll get someone well-versed in the business model but with less concern for teaching effectively from the start. In talking with a pro before and getting some scuttlebutt it did also seem that the modules/courses pros have to keep up with can be both overly taxing and focused little on actually making for a better instructor but rather a more skilled marketer of lessons & clinics and building golf as a business.

 

I don't mean to imply that instructors worth their salt don't exist so my bad if it comes off that way. The instructor I moved to corrected faults imparted in the past very quickly, is consistent in how he teaches, and gives students as many or as few nuggets as they're hungry for. 

[PedronNiall]

5 hours ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

But it's also not exactly fair to say "grip/stance/setup" and everyone's just gonna dig it out of the dirt either. 

I agree, and that's not what I claimed. My issue is that many certified instructors don't even teach those aspects. There are people taking lessons for months who don't have a basic framework to have any hope of progressing towards a better swing. That makes no sense that people are walking around with PGA teaching credentials and don't impart those things as a matter of course. Neither my first nor second PGA instructor got my grip set properly, and my second was a nightmare of inconsistencies when it came to that along with other issues. 

 

To the rest of your post, discussing what I assume is computer engineering in your case since you mention data storage, that's a perfect segue. There are lots of fly-by-night and online golf "instructors" these days akin to coding bootcamps, promising what's necessary to get into some kind of IT career, but often with little way of knowing how credible they are. Visiting PGA professionals should be the equivalent of starting out in CS101 at any accredited university and moving forward from there, a sure start on the right track, but that's just not how it is. Someone can go to PGA instructor #1, 2, and 3 and get philosophy lessons and lots of "don't do this, or this, or this" while only if they stumble across the right one do they get the core that gives them something to move forward from. 

 

I agree with your thought that likely many who end up as pros have played almost their whole lives and either forgot or never knew what it was like to not understand the swing. Even if that's the case, though, part of the PGA credential should be a decent emphasis on how to teach as well as keys everyone should be presented with as a minimum over different spreads of lesson packages. 

 

The basics not being there in some cases because professors were geniuses in school who got advanced degrees but had no idea to teach are exactly why there are industrial boards, cert exams, and so on across different technical fields, to make sure standards are imparted on students and so they know what they should be walking away understanding when they leave each level of study. I don't expect golf to ever necessitate anything that intense, but it's a negative that students don't know what they should be walking away with at a minimum after a few or more lessons and that pros have no standard as to what they should impart when they're teaching under the PGA umbrella. 

 

[iacas]

6 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

I don't mean to imply that instructors worth their salt don't exist so my bad if it comes off that way

Now you’ve “hinted” too strongly about the “business” stuff.

 

Instruction has never been better. Golf isn’t skiing or coding.

[PedronNiall]

On 6/14/2023 at 6:11 AM, iacas said:

Now you’ve “hinted” too strongly about the “business” stuff.

 

Instruction has never been better. Golf isn’t skiing or coding.

So you don't agree that one, there's a lot more questionable instruction floating around because anyone can call themselves a golf coach now, or two, that it's a negative that it's not a set standard for even PGA teaching pros to set at least minimal deliverables for their students from a lesson package if they're willing to follow the instructions given, practice in the manner shared, and take their full set of lessons within a recommended interval? I still don't see it as favorable that top level golf instruction could be structured to promise nothing for the money and time invested. There are people in the "strange golf lessons" thread who literally got zero for their dollars spent for that very reason, because there are no standards and it's a wild west of hit or miss when picking someone even if they're a certified instructor.

 

Skiing: by the end of this week you'll be able to take jumps and navigate single black diamonds solo. Tennis: by the end of this set of lessons you'll be able to return serves on both your backhand and front hand side. Racing: by the end of this school you'll be able to properly manage your throttle, braking, and steering through increasingly demanding turn series. Beginner soccer series: by the end of these sessions you'll be able to dribble the ball and cut with either foot. Beginner, intermediate, and advance golf instruction: the instructor will deliver whatever method they've taken a shine to and you'd better hope it works for you. Still wild to me that the largest credentialing body for golf instructors is running yet another campaign--a good one IMO as I said earlier--but there's no "standard of care" to be found. Maybe it's just the unspoken way of saying either you'll get it or you won't.

 

Would be nice if there were some skill assessments and discussion with non-beginners establishing expectations as the norm, but I'd be happy with some standardization for beginners to start so they don't head down a path beginning with frustration and ending with anger or unhappiness because golf is made out to be the true ultimate mystery of life. All one man's opinions, of course, and maybe golf is the one sport that no high-level, repeatable frameworks from zero to basic competent play or timelines to accomplish even basic skills can be mapped out.

[iacas]

22 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

So you don't agree that one, there's a lot more questionable instruction floating around because anyone can call themselves a golf coach now

 

No, not at all. That you can call yourself a "golf coach" or an "instructor" has always been true.

 

What's also true: instruction has never been better.

 

22 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

if they're willing to follow the instructions given, practice in the manner shared, and take their full set of lessons within a recommended interval?

 

Those students don't exist in massive quantities. Sorry. Like I said earlier, sometimes it's the student who is at fault.

 

22 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

I still don't see it as favorable that top level golf instruction could be structured to promise nothing for the money and time invested.

 

You're making a lot of assumptions.

 

22 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

Skiing

 

Skiing is several orders of magnitude easier than golf.

 

22 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

Tennis: by the end of this set of lessons you'll be able to return serves on both your backhand and front hand side.

 

Against a professional tennis player? Because golf doesn't start off against a golf course that just lobs the ball to you at 30 MPH. It jumps right to full-on "as tough as it gets" right away.

 

You're making a lot of really bad comparisons.

 

22 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

Still wild to me that the largest credentialing body for golf instructors

 

The PGA isn't just "golf instructors."

22 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

Would be nice if there were some skill assessments and discussion with non-beginners establishing expectations as the norm, but I'd be happy with some standardization for beginners to start so they don't head down a path beginning with frustration and ending with anger or unhappiness because golf is made out to be the true ultimate mystery of life.

 

See above about a lot of assumptions.

 

I didn't like the insinuation that golf pros out there are ripping people off because they're good at the "business" side of things without actually helping people play better golf. I think your experiences are very limited and you're making a bunch of assumptions.

[RoyalTroon]

On 6/16/2023 at 1:40 AM, PedronNiall said:

Skiing

 

A sport that might be more penal than golf.  You misplace the club face through the strike and the ball ends up in the woods, you misplace the edge of a ski into the slope and the skier ends up in the woods.  But skiing and golf it seems to me share traits that, for one among others, no level of incompetence can stop one from accomplishing the goal of each sport- having a ball drop to the bottom of a hole, or having a slide to the bottom of a grade.  It's a matter of efficiency. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 17, 2023 by BALLYBUNION
spelling

[tm3]

On 6/12/2023 at 12:55 PM, Zitlow said:

If you don't like the prevailing golf instruction just wait a couple months and it will change. 

 

Squat move, motorcycle move, shallowing move, re-center move, power shift move, drop the arms move, swing the arms move, cast the club move, pull the left arm move, turn the left hip move, lead with right elbow move, left arm off chest move, unfold right arm move, shaft lean move and others which I can't think of at the moment.

None of that works unless you keep your head down and your left arm straight.

 

Didn't Butch tell you that?

[tm3]

On 6/12/2023 at 10:49 PM, PedronNiall said:

Checked out Sisson after your mention and I'd say yes, that's the kind of thing I'm advocating for: start simply, then refine. No 25 positions, no loading of the trail side, no perfect angles, no lead arm must be firm as the Rock of Gibraltar, just three simple pieces to get players started. His before & after videos were pretty wild.

Did Sisson ever put out anything of substance?  I watched some of his videos a few years ago it was pretty entertaining to watch him do the Happy Gilmore stuff, and he said that he had some instructional stuff "coming" but I never saw any.

[SNIPERBBB]

On 6/13/2023 at 11:14 PM, PedronNiall said:

. 

.

 

I guess part of the problem is that a lot of the current model emphasizes the business/revenue potential of teaching, successfully so ad far as I can tell. There are great ads like the one with Morikawa suggesting people look up a local pro, but it sucks that if they follow through the odds appear to be at least somewhat higher that they'll get someone well-versed in the business model but with less concern for teaching effectively from the start. In talking with a pro before and getting some scuttlebutt it did also seem that the modules/courses pros have to keep up with can be both overly taxing and focused little on actually making for a better instructor but rather a more skilled marketer of lessons & clinics and building golf as a business.

 

Most instructors are self-employed if they aren't employed directly by a club or other golf business. If you're a one man show, most of your skill has to be in running the business or you'll be working for McDonald's. 

[Zitlow]

1 hour ago, tm3 said:

None of that works unless you keep your head down and your left arm straight.

 

Didn't Butch tell you that?

Butch gave me a copy of the Official GolfWRX Swing Fundamentals List. 

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

3 hours ago, BALLYBUNION said:

 

A sport that might be more penal than golf.  You misplace the club face through the strike and the ball ends up in the woods, you misplace the edge of a ski into the slope and the skier ends up in the woods.  But skiing and golf it seems to me share traits that, for one among others, no level of incompetence can stop one from accomplishing the goal of each sport- having a ball drop to the bottom of a hole, or having a slide to the bottom of a grade.  It's a matter of efficiency. 

 

 

Yeah, obviously anything that involves going down a slippery slope at high speeds on sticks can be physically dangerous. 

 

What makes it a bad comparison, though, is that you can "learn to ski" in a day, and get down the slopes. It won't be pretty, it won't be efficient, and there might be a few tumbles, but you can do it. But if "par" for a ski run was to get down in say 4 min 30 sec, those skiers would probably take 8+ minutes to get down. 

 

The equivalent of that skier is someone who is getting around the course shooting 130. 

 

Nobody is timing the run of a recreational skier. But we all carry around scorecards on the golf course. In skiing, as long as you don't break anything, you maybe don't realize how bad of a skier you are. In golf, we ALL know how bad we are. 

[SNIPERBBB]

58 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

 In golf, we ALL know how bad we are. 

Do we? Lack of self-awareness when presented with hard facts is today's signature characteristic.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Just now, SNIPERBBB said:

Do we? Lack of self-awareness when presented with hard facts is today's signature characteristic.

 

[Nels55]

5 hours ago, tm3 said:

Did Sisson ever put out anything of substance?  I watched some of his videos a few years ago it was pretty entertaining to watch him do the Happy Gilmore stuff, and he said that he had some instructional stuff "coming" but I never saw any.

I bought his instructional video a few years ago.  Trying to apply his principles did not seem to work for me as my swing simply got worse the more I tried.  

[PedronNiall]

16 hours ago, iacas said:

 

No, not at all. That you can call yourself a "golf coach" or an "instructor" has always been true.

 

What's also true: instruction has never been better.

 

 

Those students don't exist in massive quantities. Sorry. Like I said earlier, sometimes it's the student who is at fault.

 

 

You're making a lot of assumptions.

 

 

Skiing is several orders of magnitude easier than golf.

 

 

Against a professional tennis player? Because golf doesn't start off against a golf course that just lobs the ball to you at 30 MPH. It jumps right to full-on "as tough as it gets" right away.

 

You're making a lot of really bad comparisons.

 

 

The PGA isn't just "golf instructors."

 

See above about a lot of assumptions.

 

I didn't like the insinuation that golf pros out there are ripping people off because they're good at the "business" side of things without actually helping people play better golf. I think your experiences are very limited and you're making a bunch of assumptions.

You've missed my point, which is that the expectation around the return for X hours/numbers of instructional sessions is plainly stated almost everywhere else but golf. It's not about someone being able to return serves to both sides against a top 100 tennis player, it's that they'll get the fundamentals they need to do it at basic levels with the choice to build from there if they like & show aptitude. The examples had nothing to do with going "as tough as it gets" right away, which is why I listed what might be seen at various levels of instruction in other sports.

 

To the point about "coaches", yes, it's always been true that anyone could call themselves a coach, but there's more of that than ever, the internet is saturated with them, and without a consistent expectation about what's going to come out of engagement with a PGA teaching professional vs someone who calls themselves an instructor then the credential is lacking. I can look on any of the self-claimed coaches pages and see bullet lists of potential gains from becoming a better golfer; I can look on PGA instructor sites and see pretty much the same. What it would be nice to see from the PGA side are core lessons that will be focused on at X level in different packages and clear expectations about what a student will walk away with over that course of lesson.

 

The PGA may not just be golf instructors, but this has all been about PGA Teaching Professionals. I'm one of those few & far between as you say who followed what I was told yet progressed slowly and stagnated hard because I received poor instruction from credentialed PGA Teaching Professionals, including methods that led to injury over time, thankfully not permanently so. Luckily for me those issues were corrected through working with a later instructor. While my experiences are my own, the outcome of getting little consistency from credentialed instructors is not.

 

I do consider it a ripoff when people pay money with no established expectation around what they'll get in return if they do as instructed. Perhaps I was a fool when I was younger for not being aware that if those expectations aren't shared I should be asking about them myself and know to walk away otherwise.

 

All of the instructors on the PGA site have one of these panels below their teaching blurb:

 

 

Great that they have checks showing what they specialize or believe they specialize in, but it's still nebulous. Beginner baseball: if you pay for this instruction, you will learn to hold a bat, make a basic swing, make a basic throw, and field a ground ball. Beginner swimming: you will learn to allow your body to float using its natural buoyancy and after kicking lessons on a floating board, how to make simple forward and backstrokes. Beginner golf: this course specializes in teaching beginner golf, and you will be taught the basics; there is no outline of any specific skills you will walk away with. I get that no one can guarantee someone can break 100 within X lessons, and I don't think I've heard of any instructor actually guaranteeing someone will make their golf team despite what might be implied above, but there shouldn't be hard to establish that someone will be taught how to make a basic putting, chipping, and pitching stroke comfortably within some time frame. It shouldn't be hard to guarantee that someone will be able to make a passable, consistent full swing within X lessons of getting those basics down so long as they follow the instructor's guidelines.

 

Why is it so divisive for me to point out that marked difference between pretty much all other sports and golf? Golf has done such a good job of being mysterious that often parents, including mine when I was younger, don't even think to have expectations around what their child will be able to do when they're done with a set of lessons. Most adults don't think to ask what they should be walking away with if they sign up for their own. Many feel like if they aren't getting it then it's just because they missed something, or golf isn't for them, or the like. If there were skills aligned with what's being taught, outlined on the PGA site, and established as a part of credentialing then at least new players would know that one, going to any certified instructor will make sure that they can do X, Y, and Z if they attend the stated amount of lessons, and that if the instructor goes off on a bunch of tangents or confusing methodologies they know it's time to simply move on rather than wondering if they're just new to this all and it's their fault for not understanding yet.

 

To clarify an earlier response, great golf is hard, good golf is somewhat difficult, but basic golf is basic, yet it's not taught that way.

 

Honestly this is a bit of a silly exercise as it's clear not much is going to change and you and I aren't going to agree when it comes to the state of instruction. To your last point, what I've seen isn't isolated. There are plenty of threads, blogs, tweets, and whatever else with people moving between methods because nothing is clicking, beginner or otherwise, with no established expectations about what they should be getting from their suites of lessons, such as noted in the opening post. There are plenty of sources where players talk about inconsistent teaching from the same instructor. Being at the range or short game areas at all kinds manner of courses there are conversations going on about positions, or moves, or whatever else someone picked up from this instructor or that one while they lack any semblance of repeatable setup or motion. I've had discussions about it with very good golfers with quite a few years more than I have who say they see the same: people who've paid for lessons, sometimes from more than one source, but are fighting any potential progress because they have no basics established even after months with an instructor.

 

To the original intent of this thread, I'm 100% in agreement: prevailing instruction is not about teaching players in a way that will let them have fun on the course, sets no clear timelines for specific skill development, is often too complex for even some who've at least been around golf for years to make sense of, is contradictory and convoluted to the point that people fight on here all the time about not only whose method is right but also to what is even being said in the same videos, lessons, or articles, and isn't going to lead most who want to get better in the game headed anywhere good.

 

As things are golf will continue to remain a sport for those who either simply get it naturally--99% of the time because they've been swinging a club since before the age of 5--or who have the time & money to luck into the right instructor.

[PedronNiall]

7 hours ago, tm3 said:

Did Sisson ever put out anything of substance?  I watched some of his videos a few years ago it was pretty entertaining to watch him do the Happy Gilmore stuff, and he said that he had some instructional stuff "coming" but I never saw any.

He's not the best YouTuber in that he doesn't have many videos that are just to the point with a bulleted list of the core. I'd say that's owing to him being an instructor and not dabbling in editing & AV skills or getting someone from the outside to help there as many do. Definitely hurts him a bit because the sound quality is problematic in some of the older vids.

 

He's also not really made for YouTube because he doesn't have a bucket of things to sell period. His method is literally:

• Swing the club freely, fluidly, and fast
• While delivering the center of the clubface to the ball

He goes into more things around understanding what's occurring in the swing or during different shapes of shots, but his main claim is that the best players learn those things instinctively and that new players should be trying to do the same. No positions or swing thoughts, just the above. Internal focus of positions, angles, setup, grip, checkpoints, weight shift, etc., vs External focus on swinging the club freely and delivering it back to the ball.

 

Only seems to want to sell the book and maybe book some lessons while sharing his thoughts and some testimonials/before & afters vs having a team behind him trying to make the YouTube dollars, so he probably doesn't translate as well as a lot of others with videos up. There's a multi-part series on his method explained that goes into detail around it all if that's what you're wanting, though it's from years ago so not sure if you'd seen it or not. He does talk more in-depth there and reiterates the big picture in them, though.

 

He does also cite an interesting study by Dr Wulf, a researcher he talked with, and that lead me down a fun little rabbit hole if you want to take a look.

 

http://gwulf.faculty.unlv.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Wulf_2007-+-commentaries-+-response.pdf

 

https://barbellrehab.com/external-cues-motor-performance/

 

Interesting reads with more to be found if you're so inclined.

[iacas]

25 minutes ago, PedronNiall said:

You've missed my point

 

And you've missed a few of mine, namely:

• Golf is much more difficult than "you can dribble a soccer ball kinda proficiently after a lesson or two." The golf swing is orders of magnitude more complex than "shooting a basketball" or something. Cross-sport comparisons fall flat and land with a thud.
• Golfers are pretty unique. While there's generally one acceptable way to ski, there are a LOT of ways to swing a golf club. Former baseball players often have different mechanics than former gymnasts or former tennis players.
• You're giving a LOT of weight to your experiences and the experiences of those with whom you've talked.
• Sometimes the golfers don't do what they should do, either.

I don't want the PGA telling me what I should be teaching. I offer a set of three lessons to beginners that have yielded tremendous results, but I wouldn't even want to force this on other instructors as they may have some better things that they do. I may improve and change mine over time (I already have). Etc.

 

You missed the point in the tennis comparison (and others). Golf basically jumps right to the toughest level of the sport right away. In tennis, you're not returning serves against a top 100 tennis player. In golf, though, you are hitting a golf ball with a screwy stick off the ground to a 4.25" diameter hole that's 300 yards away. It's "pro level" right away because the opposition - the golf course - isn't also a beginner serving you lobbed balls like in tennis, or barely bunting ground balls to you so that you can "field a grounder."

 

25 minutes ago, PedronNiall said:

To the point about "coaches", yes, it's always been true that anyone could call themselves a coach, but there's more of that than ever

 

And again… golf instruction has also never been better.

 

25 minutes ago, PedronNiall said:

Beginner baseball:

 

We did this already. You didn't learn how to grip a club in your beginner lessons? And just because you teach someone how to field a ground ball doesn't mean they're going to actually be able to do it. Certainly not on a firmly hit ball while also then being able to throw out the runner a good % of the time.

 

25 minutes ago, PedronNiall said:

To clarify an earlier response, great golf is hard, good golf is somewhat difficult, but basic golf is basic, yet it's not taught that way.

 

No, it's still really, really difficult. The hole isn't 4 feet wide at the beginner level, it's still 4.25". The ball isn't any easier to hit at the beginner level (there's an argument to be made for beginners starting out with bigger clubs, bigger balls, bigger holes, significantly shorter distances, teeing every ball up, etc.).

 

I understand your intent, but from the teaching side… there's a lot you're not considering.

 

If you want a "plan" for beginners, those exist. The PGA does have a "Get Golf Ready" program, and there are others out there.

 

I don't think they're great, which is why I've created my own. But I'll refer again to the bullet points at the top.

 

8 minutes ago, PedronNiall said:

He's also not really made for YouTube because he doesn't have a bucket of things to sell period. His method is literally:

• Swing the club freely, fluidly, and fast
• While delivering the center of the clubface to the ball

 

There's SOOO much more to it than that.

[Nels55]

47 minutes ago, PedronNiall said:

You've missed my point, which is that the expectation around the return for X hours/numbers of instructional sessions is plainly stated almost everywhere else but golf. It's not about someone being able to return serves to both sides against a top 100 tennis player, it's that they'll get the fundamentals they need to do it at basic levels with the choice to build from there if they like & show aptitude. The examples had nothing to do with going "as tough as it gets" right away, which is why I listed what might be seen at various levels of instruction in other sports.

 

To the point about "coaches", yes, it's always been true that anyone could call themselves a coach, but there's more of that than ever, the internet is saturated with them, and without a consistent expectation about what's going to come out of engagement with a PGA teaching professional vs someone who calls themselves an instructor then the credential is lacking. I can look on any of the self-claimed coaches pages and see bullet lists of potential gains from becoming a better golfer; I can look on PGA instructor sites and see pretty much the same. What it would be nice to see from the PGA side are core lessons that will be focused on at X level in different packages and clear expectations about what a student will walk away with over that course of lesson.

 

The PGA may not just be golf instructors, but this has all been about PGA Teaching Professionals. I'm one of those few & far between as you say who followed what I was told yet progressed slowly and stagnated hard because I received poor instruction from credentialed PGA Teaching Professionals, including methods that led to injury over time, thankfully not permanently so. Luckily for me those issues were corrected through working with a later instructor. While my experiences are my own, the outcome of getting little consistency from credentialed instructors is not.

 

I do consider it a ripoff when people pay money with no established expectation around what they'll get in return if they do as instructed. Perhaps I was a fool when I was younger for not being aware that if those expectations aren't shared I should be asking about them myself and know to walk away otherwise.

 

All of the instructors on the PGA site have one of these panels below their teaching blurb:

 

 

Great that they have checks showing what they specialize or believe they specialize in, but it's still nebulous. Beginner baseball: if you pay for this instruction, you will learn to hold a bat, make a basic swing, make a basic throw, and field a ground ball. Beginner swimming: you will learn to allow your body to float using its natural buoyancy and after kicking lessons on a floating board, how to make simple forward and backstrokes. Beginner golf: this course specializes in teaching beginner golf, and you will be taught the basics; there is no outline of any specific skills you will walk away with. I get that no one can guarantee someone can break 100 within X lessons, and I don't think I've heard of any instructor actually guaranteeing someone will make their golf team despite what might be implied above, but there shouldn't be hard to establish that someone will be taught how to make a basic putting, chipping, and pitching stroke comfortably within some time frame. It shouldn't be hard to guarantee that someone will be able to make a passable, consistent full swing within X lessons of getting those basics down so long as they follow the instructor's guidelines.

 

Why is it so divisive for me to point out that marked difference between pretty much all other sports and golf? Golf has done such a good job of being mysterious that often parents, including mine when I was younger, don't even think to have expectations around what their child will be able to do when they're done with a set of lessons. Most adults don't think to ask what they should be walking away with if they sign up for their own. Many feel like if they aren't getting it then it's just because they missed something, or golf isn't for them, or the like. If there were skills aligned with what's being taught, outlined on the PGA site, and established as a part of credentialing then at least new players would know that one, going to any certified instructor will make sure that they can do X, Y, and Z if they attend the stated amount of lessons, and that if the instructor goes off on a bunch of tangents or confusing methodologies they know it's time to simply move on rather than wondering if they're just new to this all and it's their fault for not understanding yet.

 

To clarify an earlier response, great golf is hard, good golf is somewhat difficult, but basic golf is basic, yet it's not taught that way.

 

Honestly this is a bit of a silly exercise as it's clear not much is going to change and you and I aren't going to agree when it comes to the state of instruction. To your last point, what I've seen isn't isolated. There are plenty of threads, blogs, tweets, and whatever else with people moving between methods because nothing is clicking, beginner or otherwise, with no established expectations about what they should be getting from their suites of lessons, such as noted in the opening post. There are plenty of sources where players talk about inconsistent teaching from the same instructor. Being at the range or short game areas at all kinds manner of courses there are conversations going on about positions, or moves, or whatever else someone picked up from this instructor or that one while they lack any semblance of repeatable setup or motion. I've had discussions about it with very good golfers with quite a few years more than I have who say they see the same: people who've paid for lessons, sometimes from more than one source, but are fighting any potential progress because they have no basics established even after months with an instructor.

 

To the original intent of this thread, I'm 100% in agreement: prevailing instruction is not about teaching players in a way that will let them have fun on the course, sets no clear timelines for specific skill development, is often too complex for even some who've at least been around golf for years to make sense of, is contradictory and convoluted to the point that people fight on here all the time about not only whose method is right but also to what is even being said in the same videos, lessons, or articles, and isn't going to lead most who want to get better in the game headed anywhere good.

 

As things are golf will continue to remain a sport for those who either simply get it naturally--99% of the time because they've been swinging a club since before the age of 5--or who have the time & money to luck into the right instructor.

I have tried a lot of methods over the years and not much luck really.  I have also gone to several pros for lessons with rather mixed results.  I think that pros who do not teach a fixed method but teach according to what the student can do are best.  

 

I believe there is no one correct stance, grip, swing plane, posture or any other fundamental that you can mention.  I believe that Mike Adams is correct when he says that there are no outliers among successful tour pros.  They do not succeed in spite of their 'unorthodox' setup, grip or swing but because of it.  So, in order to learn golf well you must have a savvy instructor who can teach you the fundamentals that uniquely suit you.  This type of instructor is not so easy to find as most tend to teach the swing that works best for them.  That swing could be completely opposite of what you need.  LOL I am using the word 'you' here in general terms and not you specifically.  

[aenemated]

On 6/13/2023 at 5:08 PM, Zitlow said:

Dazzle them with brilliance or baffle them with bullxxxx. I read that the AMG guy charges $10,000 a day, 

 

 

 

Imma say it - AMG videos are 100% useless. These guys are worse at expressing technology than I am;  and I'm terrible at it. And I actually make the stuff they're bumble****ing around about. 

 

 

[PedronNiall]

@tm3

Here's the specific vid from one of the series where Sisson pares it down to his keys.

 

You can watch vid 5 if you want to hear him talk more about why he moved to External Focus emphasis early in his teaching career.

 

He does discuss more details around External Focus and the traditional core swing elements in the comments below the vid as well.

 

 

And here are two other videos that touch on Dr Wulf's work in more detail, some contemporaries in tennis and golf that use them, as well as in the second vid, some very straightforward thoughts about Internal vs External Focus.