9-hole Professional Playing Lesson

I've taken your advice (if you recall my R9 Good/Bad/Ugly Post) and have committed to getting some lessons. I may still get the R9, but I'll be waiting for the price to drop at least $100 first. To fix my drive issues, I'm planning to buck up and get some intense lessons with video swing analysis. There is a GolfTec Learning Center about 20 miles away.

Anyway, back to this topic. I can think of no better way to get good, solid, well-rounded advice about all aspects of the game than to take the professional out on the course with me. You simply can't duplicate some of the messed up lies and shots that you encounter while playing a round, from the practice range. Where is the best place to look (online or elsewhere) for teaching professionals in my area who will give playing lessons from the course? I've seen advertisements for playing lessons, but they are usually in other cities. For example, the best one I saw was the Harvey Penick Golf Academy in Austin, TX. I'm all about improving my game, but I don't think my wife would approve a 3 or 4-day trip to Austin for golf lessons. LOL

Do you have someone who gives you lessons at the moment? If not, is there a professional who teaches at a course you like, perhaps someone a friend goes to for lessons?

Honestly, at a 23 handicap you don't need course management instructions.

You need swing instructions.

With respect (because a 9 GHIN is only earned through hard work), I disagree that a playing lesson would not be worthwhile. I'm not saying that I'll be taking the playing lesson next week. I agree wholeheartedly that I need swing instruction. That comes first. I'm planning for the future. The reason I score anywhere from 95 to 105 are because A) I drive 210 yards at a maximum, B) I have to use a 3 iron/hybrid on my approach shots, and C) I usually 2 & 3 putt. Let me address these...

Driving:
Let's say I fix my swing and I begin to drive it 250+ yards off the tee. Right now I struggle to get the ball 210 yards downrange, if I'm lucky enough to be in the fairway. Gaining 40 yards and being in the fairway alone may shave a half stroke from my score on most Par 4's because I would be using a much more manageble and accurate 7 or 8 iron on my approach as opposed to my 26 or 21 degree hybrid.

Bad Lies:
Being a high-handicapper, I tend to get into trouble more often. Sometimes I'm attempting shots from near-impossible lies. Above the feet, below the feet, downhill and uphill lies. From deep rough, on the lips of bunkers.. dream it and I've probably done it. You can't teach those shots on the range. If I could learn to strike the ball cleanly irregardless of the lie, I'd be able to gain half a stroke.

Course Mgmt:
The point of the playing lesson would not be course management. I do a fair job of that already. Driving only 200 yards means I sometimes have to lay up to the creek on my 2nd shot, when most of you would have driven to the creek to begin with.

Putting:
No amount of lessons will ever make me better at putting. Right now I attribute my putting woes mostly to my poor vision. I have a medical condition in my left eye that robs me of clear vision. You've heard of an astigmatism? Multiply that by 4 and that's what I see. I don't see in crisp 3D very well, which makes it awfully hard to read greens. So for argument's sake, let's say a miracle fixes my vision... I may gain a stroke there as well.

So... gain a half stroke with driving... a half stroke by learning how to hit out of bad lies... and another stroke with putts, that's 2 full strokes for each Par 4 and Par 5. Suddenly I'm a 15 handicapper, not a 23.

Debate... tell me where I'm going wrong with my line of thought. I'll listen.

I don't currently have a teaching professional that I go to every time. She quit teaching and some new guy tookover. I haven't tried him out yet, but he is more expensive. That's why I thought I'd ask you guys if you knew of some other conduit for finding a teaching pro that caters to playing lessions.

Almost all teaching pros will be willing to give you a lesson on the course. I've also noticed that many teaching pros are often not the best players on the course...


Better yet, for what you need, if you have a friend or acquaintance that is a lower handicapper, just offer to pay for his round once or twice if he'll go out with you and give you a few pointers. I followed a fewer scratch players around last summer and it helped me tremendously.

I disagree with the first part. A 23 handicapper can improve to a 16 with a better swing that hits more fairways and greens, sure; he can hit more fairways and make more pars and single-bogeys by learning to play his tendencies and by choosing his misses appropriately.

Where in Missouri are you located? I know of a few good ones across the state.

These are things you can work on at the range. Going to a course somehow put our mind in a different state. Every shot becomes harder, even though you just did it on the range. You say you get a lot of bad lies. Learning how to properly hit from a bad lie is of course useful, but what you should focus on is avoiding those bad lies and find the fairway. A downhill or uphill slope lie is not that hard to work on yourself, there are general ideas that everyone agree on which you can pick up on the internet. Your main focus should be on making a good swing and finding the fairway and greens. That is when you start posting good scores. I would take a 220 drive in the fairway over a 250 in the rough any time.

Move up a tee if you only drive the ball 210 and have those longer clubs into the green (for right now). I would take lessons to help my swing. Distance and accuracy should come as a result. I'm not sure that an on-course lesson would accomplish that as well as an off-course one, but who knows?

If the lie is that bad, you shouldn't attempt the shot. If my ball is next to the lip of a fairway bunker, I'm just getting out of there. If my ball is sitting in a divot in deep rough and I'm 180+ out, I'm not going for it. Just simple stuff. Good players get into bad lies a lot. Does Tiger hit 100% of the fairways. Just learn the technique of how to hit in certain lies and practice it on a course.

Any good teaching pro will give you a playing lesson.

I'll tend to agree though, anything that involves striking the ball, can/should be taught on the range. Bad/uneven lies, working the ball, flighting the ball, wind play, etc...... Remember, on the course, you only get one, maybe 2 shots from any given spot, then you move on (and you have to chase down that extra ball ).

Playing lessons are generally about course management and mental preparedness. Good stuff, but it doesn't do much good to be sitting on the tee box, mapping out a strategy of hitting a draw off the fairway bunker, so that you open up your approach shot of a high fade to the back right pin if you can't actually execute either the draw or the fade on command.

Just my .02....

Well let me put it to you this way......

What percentage of the time do you really pure the ball? I mean you hit it well, take a nice divot, and have good ball flight.

As a 23 handicap I seriously doubt its even 50% of the time.

So most good teaching pros are going to charge 75 an hour minimum. So why pay that person 150 dollars or more to go give you a "playing" lesson when you aren't ready for it?

If that pro took you out to hole #2 and told you "ok this green is well protected with water on the left and bunkers on the right. The pin is tucked to the right hand side. I would play to the fat part of the green and cut it in to the flag."

Could you hit a cut shot on command? What about a draw? If you only make good contact 50% of the time, what percent of that 50% would produce a nice cut to the fat part of that green?

If you can't why not learn how?

Half stroke is huge. If I could shave a half stroke off on every par 4 I play I would be a 4 handicap. There are roughly 10 par 4's on every course you play.

You can actually learn that online pretty easily.....

For uphill or downhill lies simply adjust your shoulders and waist to the slope you are playing. This is far more important for downhill than uphill. For uphill you can kinda take a normal swing and just bury the club into the hill. Downhill is tricky though and can get even the best of golfers. Above the feet choke up and lean back a hair and understand the ball is going to want to go high and left. Plan accordingly. Below the feet lean forward a hair and make sure you go down to the ball. Understand the ball is going to want to go low and right a bit. Truly deep rough and bunker shots are tricky but if you had a better golf swing you could be more precise and avoid those shots. Pros put up crazy good numbers not because they are great from the rough and bunkers (which they are as a side note) but because they don't spend that much time in them.

That sucks man.

Read them as best you can and then pick a spot a couple of inches in front of your ball to roll your ball over. If you truly cannot read putts well then try to make your speed as precise as possible. Putting has a tendency to kill me too because I do not practice short game at all. I will literally hit 600 golf balls a day or more on the range and yet will refuse to spend 20 minutes on the putting green.

*sigh*... course management for single digits is different from course management for mid to high handicaps. An important part of course management is to hit the shot you can hit, not the shot you "should" hit or the shot your 5-handicap buddy would hit. The teacher would talk on such a hole about hitting safely to the green, in such a way that the typical ball flight keeps the ball dry and likely out of the sand. Not about how to get the ball close to the pin at this point.

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to offend you or be mean. I've been where you are so I can relate.

Personally, I was told not to play golf for the first month that I started playing golf. I bought clubs and went to see a teacher and he told me not hit anything over a half shot for a month so all I did was chip and hit easy 9 irons and wedges. I guess I just don't get why it would be beneficial to get a playing lesson and I would suppose it depends on what you are trying to achieve with your golf game. I personally don't see the point in learning great course management because my priority is to get better at hitting the ball. I don't care about the results of what happens. I have thinned shots that wound up close to the hole and every time I would be happier if I pured it 50 yards short or 50 yards long because personally I don't care about the results until MY PROCESS to achieve MY DESIRED result is honed to precision. I coached basketball for awhile and to me it seems like you are saying "I want to learn how to break a 2-3 zone or learn the best way to break a 1-2-2 full court trap when you still struggle to shoot, pass, and dribble the ball. I hit my wedge anywhere from 143 to 150 yards 90% of the time. The difference between me and a pro is a pro has a gap of for example 146 to 149 and they hit that yardage 99% of the time. If you put me on a par 3 with a bunker across the front of the green at 150 yards away I would know what to hit and how to hit it. Do you know how far you hit your clubs? Do you hit them consistently enough to know? If not what do you want that pro to tell you to do? What do you think they will tell you to do? Do you want the pro to tell you "lay up on this par 3?" Learn the process. Beat the process into your head a million times. If you are not consistent enough to say to yourself "I'm going to hit this shot in this fashion" then why do you worry about how to get around the course? It seems like you are so worried about what result you can expect to get out of something when realistically you aren't competent enough in the process that will give you a result to begin with. I personally think 99% of golfers lower their handicap by simply hitting the ball BETTER until they reach single digits or less handicap.

I was too. But this guy isn't a beginner - he's a 23 handicap. That's not a fantastic player, but it means he can break 100 with some regularity.

The benefits of a playing lesson for a player of his level are on things like target selection, planning, risk aversion, and so on.

Well, playing to where the shot could end up is part of it.

We're not talking about him learning really advanced things here, though. Yes, a player of your level could learn about hitting a draw off a bunker and then a cut into a green. A player of his level is learning club selection and planning based on what he can do.

(I don't know enough about basketball to go with the analogy)

A player of his level has a larger range, but it doesn't mean there isn't a club that is likely to leave the ball in a manageable position. At hcp 23, you aren't automatically going for every green or automatically laying up. You're going for a target that is likely to leave you with either a putt or a manageable chip. How to handle yourself 150 yards out is different for a 23 handicap than it is for a 5.

It's exactly then that he has to start worrying about it. Just like we tell slicers to aim for the left rough. Just like we tell beginners who are short hitters to think of a 430-yard, par 4 as a personal-par-5. Even with a wide variety of potential landing areas for shots, planning one's way around each hole can bring the scores on that hole to a tighter range. It might take birdies out of the picture (except for the occasional lucky one), but even at 23, you can learn to keep most double bogeys off the card and bring that handicap down.

Playing to manageable short game shots and avoiding the big numbers are something I learned when my handicap was mid-20s, and it helped me break 90. There are still holes where I don't view GIR as a likely possibility, but I play to leave me where I still have a chance to get up and down for a par, and accept that a bogey can happen. On many of these holes, I can go for GIR, but in doing so, I risk bringing doubles and worse into the mix. On some of the hardest holes on a course, I'm happy to know that I'm making worst-case bogey (net par). I do work on ball striking, and on chipping and putting, and improving these will lead to lower scores, but there's still that I'm going to play golf before I'm fantastic in these. Not immediately after a swing lesson, of course, but I'm not going to refrain from playing until I'm a long and pure striker of the ball. There are plenty of ways to score well without these elements.