To get better at golf, you have to put your current biases aside.

vernon · January 31

I just wish I was better.......

Lefty_3Jack · January 31

Letting someone teach off ball flight and not what it looks like on a camera will get most of us better, quicker. Most people reading this aren't going to look like a tour pro at impact, but could shoot lower scores with un-sexy moves like keeping back to target longer, releasing sooner vs being wide open and holding onto angles.

iacas · January 31

1 hour ago, Lefty_3Jack said:

Letting someone teach off ball flight and not what it looks like on a camera will get most of us better, quicker. Most people reading this aren't going to look like a tour pro at impact, but could shoot lower scores with un-sexy moves like keeping back to target longer, releasing sooner vs being wide open and holding onto angles.

That feels like an odd post.

Cameras just show what you do. The way to change the ball flight is often to change what you do. If someone's path is -11°, and you want to try to get it to 3° in one direction or the other… you rarely just say "stop swinging so far left" or aim their body right. You typically change what they do, and the evidence of that is often on camera (or on GEARS, or on a pressure plate, etc.), AND in the ball flight.

Plus, everyone has a camera on their phone these days, so… a camera or video is a good way for the student to see what changes to how they move they're trying to change.

Also, I'm not sure what's "un-sexy" about those things, as many of those things are "more like pros".

PedronNiall · February 1

On 1/30/2024 at 10:05 AM, bortass said:

Not hard to believe at all. Being an old fart, Pluto was a planet when I graduated from college. Now if I never heard some random thing in passing that Pluto was redefined and no longer considered a planet, I would still think it's a planet. I have never looked at any of the research regarding Pluto, so it was a planet because a teacher and textbook said so in elementary school and maybe it's not based on something else I heard years ago.

Everyone has a belief system by which I mean things they think are true/false. Some people are more rigid then others when it comes to opposing ideas/something new. Who is conveying the 'new' information matters. Random range dude tells me my backswing is too short, whatever. Monte tells me my backswing is too short, it's too short. Random range dude may have been right but I don't listen because he's random range dude. I consider Monte to be an expert based on my personal experience with what he's written and shared in his various videos.

Monte sees enough golfers in his lessons to get a pretty good sampling of human behavior, ranging from those that take every tip they get as gospel to those that are extremely stubborn/borderline fanatical. Pretty sure we see this behavior in this forum over the years as well. Open minds are not super common, lol. It behooves us to do our best to have an open mind when we go to a lesson because we are trying to learn which by definition means it's something new. It doesn't mean you need to take what's being told to you as gospel because there are bad teachers out there but if you go in set on 'I need more lag' and defend said lag like it was an immutable fact, you're likely not gonna get the most from a lesson.

TLDR; Have an open mind if you want to get better at golf.

That's certainly how life goes. Every single time I work on complex code, or learn about a new process, or read/watch a video on an interesting subject I am amazed at how little I really know despite a decent bit of time spent on this earth trying to learn. Golf is great at showing us how much more we're capable of picking up when we're hungry for the knowledge and humble enough to know we won't ever have it all down.

The issue with all things in this new age is that there are so many sources of information it becomes difficult to wade through and know where to invest. We can always make more money, but time isn't coming back, so there's a high price to pay for chasing bad swing theory and unsound instruction that goes nowhere. Takes some patience to sort the good from the bad before diving in.

We're relatively spoiled on here when it comes to how much insight can be gained by hanging out and the amount of discussion & feedback we get to see and/or take part in on pretty much anything that comes down the pipeline. Heck, not even just with the swing. The equipment peeps both professional and amateur have probably shared more relevant info and access to documentation & how-tos than most of us will ever get a chance to fully sample and appreciate.

What a time to be alive.