Getting worse after lessons?

[BirdieBoy1]

My game has gone down hill this season, almost makes me want to quit.
 

Took a few lessons from an amazing instructor, changed some things, made a ton of sense, during the lesson, hitting the ball like never before with great accuracy, speed, etc.

 

when I leave and hit the course (sparingly) this year, it’s like I never played before. Slicing, massive loss in distance. 
 

I am beyond confused as well as everyone I play with

 

i am beyond stressed and unsure what to do at the moment because this is ruining the game I love and it’s extremely stressful to be going backwards at a rapid pace. 

[iacas]

What forms of feedback (video, mirrors, aids, etc.) are you doing away from lessons, and at what speeds/sizes?

[Sir-Shanks-A-Lot]

I can totally relate to that. Years ago before I quit the game I took a couple of lessons to try and improve my distance and accuracy. Nothing at all against the instructor - he was extremely knowledgeable and we had a great rapport, but he essentially tore down and re-engineered my swing into something that didn't feel at all comfortable or natural, with the same sort of end results as you are experiencing. When I came back to the game this summer I decided that I would just trust my natural instincts. So far the results have been pretty good and I'm actually hitting longer and stranger than I ever had in the past. I'm still far from consistent and there's loads of work left to do, don't get me wrong! I know it goes against conventional wisdom around here but my experience is what it is ... lessons did more harm than good for me. I guess what I am saying is to trust your instincts and try not to let two million swing thoughts clutter up your mind when you're setting up at address.

 

Golf is hard, good luck!

Edited July 24, 2023 by Sir-Shanks-A-Lot

[tatertot]

Short answer ... We build "quick fixes" to compensate for the bigger holes in our swings. These fixes can keep our scores down from round to round, but they limit us from long-term improvement. A good instructor has to break down those fixes (really bad habits) before they can build new, good habits. What you're seeing on the course is the basic fundamentals without all your old "quick fixes". Should be painful at first, but necessary for long-term, lasting improvement.

[HitSomeMissSome]

Super tough to change a swing pattern. I think most golfers want an instructor to say, "put two tees in your left pocket and you'll bomb it down the middle every time." If only it were that easy. Getting worse after a lesson is very common, especially if you have decent hand eye coordination and you made sense out of chaos. Those swings fade quickly with age. Getting some decent coaching helps. Stick with it!!! It will help you if you dedicate some time. 

[TexasTurf]

If you get good coaching and are at least somewhat coordinated you should see massive immediate positive results. If not, move on.

[KNOWMOREDOUBLES]

7 hours ago, TexasTurf said:

If you get good coaching and are at least somewhat coordinated, you should see massive immediate positive results. If not, move on.

This is what I don't understand.  There are some well-known instructors on this site who say it can take up to a year to change a movement pattern, yet you are saying massive positive results immediately. What is massive and immediate?  20 cap to 10 in two months??  Change takes time and patience. Massive and immediate is BS. 

[Patnachts]

8 hours ago, TexasTurf said:

If you get good coaching and are at least somewhat coordinated you should see massive immediate positive results. If not, move on.

What? This is absolutely the complete opposite of the truth. Golf is not home to immediate results, never has been and never will be. 

[vandyfan]

Yes, further to that, if you have been playing golf for any decent length of time (let's say at least a year) and there is a fundamental change being made to that motor pattern it is 100% going to feel WEIRD and most likely will result in you SUCKING for a while as you try to fix it. I have been working on changing the same couple of things in my swing for the last 13 months, with an instructor, and it is has been two steps forward one step back for most of it. I, personally, enjoy the process as long as it, over the long haul, is trending upwards. 

 

I do think if that there are some core issues in most players' swings that they will likely fight their entire golfing life. I fire my hips open way too fast and too early in the downswing. I work on drills to not do that constantly and, yet, it pops up every couple of weeks. An instructor can help you identify things like that but YOU have to monitor it and YOU have to put in the practice and drill to keep it under control. The idea that you would go to an instructor, they would give you two tips and you would immediately starting shooting 3-4 strokes better in your next round is an insane expectation. 

Edited July 24, 2023 by vandyfan

[Lefty_3Jack]

12 hours ago, tatertot said:

Short answer ... We build "quick fixes" to compensate for the bigger holes in our swings. These fixes can keep our scores down from round to round, but they limit us from long-term improvement. A good instructor has to break down those fixes (really bad habits) before they can build new, good habits. What you're seeing on the course is the basic fundamentals without all your old "quick fixes". Should be painful at first, but necessary for long-term, lasting improvement.

I'll go along with this.  Been as low as a 2.1 and it's all been with quick fixes/hand-eye coordination.  If you want to be consistently good, your swing is going to have to be sound.  If not you might want to try and stack the deck with playing easier courses, easier tee boxes or accept the variance.

[Rosco1216]

It will take months and hundreds to thousands of reps at minimum to start to engrain a permanent change to a motor pattern.  You can be comfortable sporadically on the range with your instructor but that isn’t going to translate to immediate consistency on the course for awhile. 
 

The only time immediate improvement can happen is when making minor tweaks to an already solid and consistent swing pattern. Such as a tweak to alignment or club face or address or simply being patient in transition, etc.  But even then, you’re going to have lapses of awareness to those tweaks at times on the golf and revert to prior habits.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Rosco1216

[Hawkeye77]

55 minutes ago, Rosco1216 said:

It will take months and hundreds to thousands of reps at minimum to start to engrain a permanent change to a motor pattern.  You can be comfortable sporadically on the range with your instructor but that isn’t going to translate to immediate consistency on the course for awhile. 
 

The only time immediate improvement can happen is when making minor tweaks to an already solid and consistent swing pattern. Such as a tweak to alignment or club face or address or simply being patient in transition, etc.  But even then, you’re going to have lapses of awareness to those tweaks at times on the golf and revert to prior habits.

Hundreds of thousands? No. 

[Rosco1216]

14 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

Hundreds of thousands? No. 

Re-read that once more…

 

Hundreds of thousands, no. 
 

Hundreds to thousands, yes.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Rosco1216

[bcc624]

On 7/23/2023 at 10:13 AM, BirdieBoy1 said:

My game has gone down hill this season, almost makes me want to quit.
 

Took a few lessons from an amazing instructor, changed some things, made a ton of sense, during the lesson, hitting the ball like never before with great accuracy, speed, etc.

 

when I leave and hit the course (sparingly) this year, it’s like I never played before. Slicing, massive loss in distance. 
 

I am beyond confused as well as everyone I play with

 

i am beyond stressed and unsure what to do at the moment because this is ruining the game I love and it’s extremely stressful to be going backwards at a rapid pace. 

Are you able to get feedback between lessons without going to see him during a full lesson? This is something I almost require if I’m going to invest in lessons. I can’t trust myself to practice correctly without periodic feedback. 

[Lefty_3Jack]

Honest, dumb question..... should you see ball striking improvement within weeks of doing non-ball or club related drills or small swing (half to half) when making full swings?  I think a lot of people end up going the band aid route for fear of swing breakdowns that basically take them thru a complete re-build and they shy away from instructors who want to change their swing in favor of those who give them a key or a feeling to make better contact immediately.  

[MountainKing]

58 minutes ago, Lefty_3Jack said:

Honest, dumb question..... should you see ball striking improvement within weeks of doing non-ball or club related drills or small swing (half to half) when making full swings?  I think a lot of people end up going the band aid route for fear of swing breakdowns that basically take them thru a complete re-build and they shy away from instructors who want to change their swing in favor of those who give them a key or a feeling to make better contact immediately.  

 

When you hear about touring pro's making changes they talk about months, and these guys are working at it for hours on end, so take that for what it's worth.

[Rbsiedsc]

57 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

 

When you hear about touring pro's making changes they talk about months, and these guys are working at it for hours on end, so take that for what it's worth.

ditto. My coach has told me to try an aim for 200 reps of just a backswing feel and then transition feel. I am still doing them at about 50% speed almost a month in. I plan on monthly check-ins for 3 months and see where things are. It might come a little easier as these were things I was working on him before I went down the overspeed rat hole and reverted badly.

[Socrates]

When I fixed my swing with a very good teacher, it took me a few sessions to break the bad habits where I could hit good shots with him present.  It was months before I could take it to the course and not suffer a relapse because I couldn't stop reverting back to bad habits.  Then it was an emergency lesson or two and I was back on the path.  It took me the better part of 2.5 years to get to the point where I could go for extended periods of time without getting a refresher.  Even now I will get into a bad habit without realizing it, but it usually can be fixed by returning to the basics of our changes.  Sometimes I need his help, most times I can figure it out on my own.

 

If you can hit good shots and make good swings in their presence, you need to persevere with this and when you do have a relapse, set up another session.  This is not a short-term thing and takes lots of dedication and reps.  I know a guy who once said, "it's a process."

[naval2006]

There’s no such a thing as golf snake oil.
 Depending on a golfer’s level it can take months or years to get the proper technique to play well. Hand eye coordination vanishes as you grow older, instinct won’t take you long. 
 

Practice, patience and determination makes good players, whether they are gifted or not. 

[Zitlow]

Until you learn what to move and how to move it in the proper sequence you'll be playing at golf instead of playing golf. 

[Ri_Redneck]

In all honesty, there ARE some things that can be changed quickly. However, these are usually minor setup changes instead of swing changes. Misalignment of your body, which can cause ball flight issues, is one of the most common I see. I played with a buddy a couple of weeks ago that was over-drawing everything. He tried re-aligning the clubface and he'd get a push. I wasn't paying attention at first, but once I got behind him when he was setting up, it was obvious that his body alignment was a good bit more closed than it used to be. He aligns the clubface by choosing a mark in front of the ball and he was still doing that the same way, but the body alignment had shifted his path to the right. His normal baby draw had become a strong draw that was getting him in trouble. Once I pointed it out and he recalibrated, he was good. I sometimes get my right foot flared out too much and it can cause thin shots because my weight gets a tad too far back. Bringing it back square fixes things immediately. But these slight adjustments don't really affect the feel of the swing. I call it sloppiness in setup.

 

Just wanted to throw that in cause the OP didn't really mention what the pro had him working on.

 

BT

[KMeloney]

There's also the concept that we can over-do, under-do, or "trade" movements (implement something new in the place of something else that was working) when you practice or play without your instructor. I think it's pretty easy to not do things as instructed once you're on your own, even though you think you are.

 

 

[bortass]

This is a tough one and I've been on both sides of it.

 

I found that thinking about what was covered in a lesson while on the course before a swing made a mess of things. I'd actively try to do the changes covered in the lesson and ball striking would tend to be worse. I'm not a person that can have a bunch of mechanical swing thoughts and play well. I do much better just trying to swing the club when I played. The change from the lesson should work into my swing over time, if I work on it appropriately at the range. The pattern I see is that once in a while the better move shows up on the course and shot quality slowly improves over time.

 

The opposite was a scenario like what @Ri_Redneck pointed that happened to me recently. Went to a Monte clinic and he pointed out a real basic flaw with my swing, I cut my backswing off way too short. Took a few weeks but that change has made a massive difference in how I perform on course but this is something fairly simple compared to changing how my left wrist works, for example.

 

My advice is unless it's something simple, don't expect to see improvements right away when you play. Keep playing golf swing on the range and just play golf on the course. This is just my personal perspective and opinion, so take it with a grain of salt.

[larrybud]

I've been down the road of "getting worse" before getting better, and in every case, the instructor honestly was just terrible. All band-aides, not understanding root causes of the issue (I can look back now and say that). 

 

I became a professional student for probably 10 years, and learned to ID the BS from these these guys. I started "interviewing" the instructor. Asking some key questions and seeing if they were boiler plate responses or if they had an idea of what they were talking about (e.g. something as simple as ball flight laws). I used to hit big pulls, and the "solution" one guy gave was to "aim more right". lol. This was DURING a lesson. He was a one-and-done.

 

Not saying that's what's going on with you, and YMMV.

 

The two instructors that I did get lessons from which I would put in the "+" category, I immediately, and I mean IMMEDIATELY improved my ball striking

Went from a 6 to a 2 index in 3 months with one guy.

 

[Rbsiedsc]

4 hours ago, bortass said:

This is a tough one and I've been on both sides of it.

 

I found that thinking about what was covered in a lesson while on the course before a swing made a mess of things. I'd actively try to do the changes covered in the lesson and ball striking would tend to be worse. I'm not a person that can have a bunch of mechanical swing thoughts and play well. I do much better just trying to swing the club when I played. The change from the lesson should work into my swing over time, if I work on it appropriately at the range. The pattern I see is that once in a while the better move shows up on the course and shot quality slowly improves over time.

 

The opposite was a scenario like what @Ri_Redneck pointed that happened to me recently. Went to a Monte clinic and he pointed out a real basic flaw with my swing, I cut my backswing off way too short. Took a few weeks but that change has made a massive difference in how I perform on course but this is something fairly simple compared to changing how my left wrist works, for example.

 

My advice is unless it's something simple, don't expect to see improvements right away when you play. Keep playing golf swing on the range and just play golf on the course. This is just my personal perspective and opinion, so take it with a grain of salt.

Silly question, how do you just play golf? Have an external feel and go from there? I do my lesson feels as my pre shot routine but then I just pick target and go. 

[bortass]

9 minutes ago, Rbsiedsc said:

Silly question, how do you just play golf? Have an external feel and go from there? I do my lesson feels as my pre shot routine but then I just pick target and go. 

For me, it's as close to just swing the club as possible. My PSR, not saying it's the best, is pick the target and go. I don't do practice swings and I don't try to think about make sure you do X during the swing. I get in trouble if I'm actively thinking about how I need to make sure I bow my left wrist or something else. I'm much better off ignoring the mechanical stuff and just doing my best to swing the club.

 

Sure, I pay attention during my swing and take note of the various feels because I will sometimes think about it after the shot. I forgot to do Cast B that swing or it felt like I cut my backswing too short. So be cognizant of what just happened but don't fill my head with a bunch of swing thoughts. Just what's my target and let's go.

 

Not sure how well I explained it and for me that's how I do it. Everyone is different and it seems to work for me but may not for anyone else. I'm not about to say it's the best way or that it's easy. It took a lot of time to let go of the make sure you do XYZ thoughts before each swing.

[Pepperturbo]

On 7/23/2023 at 7:13 AM, BirdieBoy1 said:

My game has gone down hill this season, almost makes me want to quit.
 

Took a few lessons from an amazing instructor, changed some things, made a ton of sense, during the lesson, hitting the ball like never before with great accuracy, speed, etc.

 

when I leave and hit the course (sparingly) this year, it’s like I never played before. Slicing, massive loss in distance. 
 

I am beyond confused as well as everyone I play with

 

i am beyond stressed and unsure what to do at the moment because this is ruining the game I love and it’s extremely stressful to be going backwards at a rapid pace. 

You're overthinking what you learned, and more than likey NOT practicing nearly enough at what you were taught.  Taking what you learned to the golf course will not be rewarding, until you write what you were taught into swing memory.  Learning and playing the game are two entirely unique aspects of golf.

 

Touring pros go through a learning cycle when changing aspects of their game, look at Ricky Fowler.  People learning golf tend to get in their own way of progress, while pros making significant changes, do what they are told and stick with the process.

[BirdieBoy1]

3 hours ago, Pepperturbo said:

You're overthinking what you learned, and more than likey NOT practicing nearly enough at what you were taught.  Taking what you learned to the golf course will not be rewarding, until you write what you were taught into swing memory.  Learning and playing the game are two entirely unique aspects of golf.

 

Touring pros go through a learning cycle when changing aspects of their game, look at Ricky Fowler.  People learning golf tend to get in their own way of progress, while pros making significant changes, do what they are told and stick with the process.

I agree 100% with you 

 

sorry for lack of response in here, just been super frustrated. 
 

but I am overthinking, that’s been my issue since I started. Not sure how to get over that part at all because I think mentally is where I am distracted, overthinking, etc

[i*windows]

12 hours ago, BirdieBoy1 said:

I agree 100% with you 

 

sorry for lack of response in here, just been super frustrated. 
 

but I am overthinking, that’s been my issue since I started. Not sure how to get over that part at all because I think mentally is where I am distracted, overthinking, etc

I won the club championship last year and played great golf. At the start of the season I had a couple of lessons because I wanted to get better, I flushed it on the range and played like a 36 handicapper on the course. It's super frustrating, but as you get older you learn its just one of those things, change takes some time, big changes take forever.

 

You need to monitor your progress, and also have someone else monitor your progress, trust your plan, trust your process and you will improve, good luck!

Edited July 27, 2023 by i*windows

[Shankapotimous]

I didn't read all of the responses, but I will tell you this. I experienced the exact same thing. You HAVE to trust the process and follow it. Don't utilize what you just learned that day on the course 1 hour later. Work on it on the range. I had the very same question to my instructor. "What do I do? Do I use this now on the course?" even though I couldn't hit a damn ball lol...He told me "No, practice it at home without a ball, on the range. Work on it and then slowly take it out on the course". So I did that. Things got worse before they got better, but they got better for sure. Mainly with how far I can hit and the quality of my swing. 

 

Sometimes we would work on same thing for multiple sessions. There is a system to it. 

 

Patience.

 

Also, pick one and don't do what I did by taking lessons and then watching YouTube videos and try those too. You will drive yourself crazy. Stick to one and follow it, but you have to make sure that the "one" is actually good instructor for you. 

 

Good luck!

Edited July 27, 2023 by Shankapotimous