Bubba's Secret is no lessons?

See at url.  my keyboard broken or would write more but you can read and enoy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304356604577342043871827450.html

I think this whole no lesson thing is overstated because it has become his 'brand'. I mean, he was a Bulldog, was he not? I think they have a decent program there, so he must have gotten a good deal of instruction. He has had lessons, he just doesn't have a coach.

Yeah I would tend to agree with that. You don't get to the point of talent enough to win The Masters without having some 'instruction' along the way.

Having said that, certainly his swing is home-grown that he wouldn't want someone messing with. I would compare him to Furyk in that regard...their swings are so unique you don't want someone trying to "fix" it....it works just fine for them.

I'm with you, Can you imagine the first lesson.....now.... posture, grip, and swing. HA

Forget the instruction. That is crazy talking to the President "What's up, bud". That is classic!

I wonder if they set a tee time up to play some time?

The phrase I kept reading after the masters was he had never had a "formal lesson".  That can mean whatever you want it to mean really.  I haven't had a formal lesson (i.e. one-on-one work with a professional) since I was 15, but I've received plenty of instruction through reading, recording my swing, and having friends that I trust critique me.

Have to agree with you on that one.  There is no way that he played college golf with absolutely zero instruction.

Well depends, does a coach go in there and say, "Oh look at his swing, we must change this." Or does he go and look, "hey this kid is lighting up the course"

We get this preconcieved notion that golf is dictated by how a swing looks, when in reality its the complete opposite. If i was a coach, i could care less, all you want is results. I played for a golf team that competed on the state level every year, and just a few years ago one of the kid made it to the US open as an Amateur. You know what, my coach didn't touch one swing, because it looked wierd. If a kid had a serious miss, he would give a few tips, but other than that, it was just produce on the course.

Bubba's secret is playing alot of golf, and getting alot of things right. He's just one of those rare occassions were things just worked for him and his swing. Its not really a secret, its just what worked for him, and it worked out..

I can only imagine the tweets if he visits the White House:

@bubbawatson:     going to visit the prez' house today.  pretty awesome!

@bubbawatson:     driving around DC.    lots of old buildings and everyone is wearing a suit - yuck!

@bubbawatson:     just drove by a really tall narrow pointy building with no windows.   didn't know what it was but there were people taking pictures so maybe its a monument or something

@bubbawatson:      just pulled up to WH and honked general lee's horn.    lots of nervous guys came running to the gate!

@bubbawatson:    kind of bummed.   secret service guy made me put on a shirt under the overalls

@bubbawatson:     really bummed now.  made me put on shoes too

@bubbawatson:     white house is really old.  i bet it was built before the country was founded

@bubbawatson:    WH has lot's of pictures of old dead guys.  whats up with that?

@bubbawatson:   prez is pretty cool.   offered me job as ambassador to france when i quite golf

@bubbawatson:     going outside with prez to show him how to hit my shot on playoff

@bubbawatson:    secret service guy thinks they can fix dent in the chopper.   pilot is still pretty freaked out though

@bubbawatson:      gotta leave now.     peeled out all the way down the driveway in the general lee.    yeeee hawww!

I don't know why some people have a hard time digesting that Bubba is a self taught golfer.  He has flat out said he's never had a lesson or ever watched video of his swing.  He doesn't need Trackman, high speed video or any of those other things that so many of today's golfers think will lead them to be better golfers.  He learned the game the same way golfers like Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and other golfers back to Harry Vardon and beyond learned how to play, by trial and error, and a great understanding of their own unique swing.  I guess you can say it can still be done.

Bubba went to Milton High School and played on the golf team there with Heath Slocum and Boo Weekley.  I'm sure the three of them were very competitive with each other in a friendly way and that probably helped them a lot.  Bubba didn't go straight to the University of Georgia.  He went to Faulkner State Community College for two years where he was a junior college All-American.  He then went to U of G and his first year there he helped them win the SEC title.

I doubt he got much help at all while attending Faulkner or the U of G.  It doesn't seem feasible that anyone would mess with his swing at the U of G.  They brought him in there because he was already a great golfer and he didn't spend much time there at all, two seasons.

I don't think everyone should follow what Bubba did.  Most people need someone watching them and helping them.  But Bubba proved it can still be done.  I think golf has gotten way to scientific for a lot of people when, in my opinion, the game is still best played by feel.  There was such a contrast at this years Masters between Tiger and Bubba.  Bubba with his self taught swing and Tiger who has been coached the past year and a half by a guy who tries very hard to appear like a genius and has a scientific view of golf.  Several knowledgeable people have said that Tiger at the Masters had the worst swing they ever saw on an elite golfer and he should just start swinging away instead of putting so much concentration into getting his swing broken down into parts and trying to get each part right.

Right on Rudy, It's amazing that Watsons win ruffles so many feathers. There's a begrudging acknowledgement that YES! he can play and YES! that is a "proper" golf swing. Hilarious really that some golf coaches still can't get over the fact that a player doesn't need their services to Win the US Masters. We should all be cheering that a swing that isn't coached can be perfect. It makes the whole thing slightly more accessible.

Right on Rudy, It's amazing that Watsons win ruffles so many feathers. There's a begrudging acknowledgement that YES! he can play and YES! that is a "proper" golf swing. Hilarious really that some golf coaches still can't get over the fact that a player doesn't need their services to Win the US Masters. We should all be cheering that a swing that isn't coached can be perfect. It makes the whole thing slightly more accessible.

I don't know if you were replying directly to logjam or me too but I wanted to reply to you anyway.  Swing like Bubba?  Where's that coming from?  I never mention that and neither does logjam.  We were both saying some people think Bubba had coaching along the way and I don't believe he did.  I'm sure his coaches in high school and college tried to help him some with general instruction but he never had any personal instruction.  The tone of this thread was that Bubba had to have coaching somewhere along the way and that he couldn't have learned the game entirely by himself.

I don't know what it's like to be on a golf team in college, but I see some high school teams practicing where I go to practice and it's the players hitting balls and one or two guys walking up and down and just giving some general instruction like "Stand more erect" or "You're going to far past parallel on your backswing".  If that's the kind of coaching Bubba received, I think Bubba is right to say he never had any lessons.

Besides, Bubba seems like a genuine guy to me where if someone helped him out a lot when he was learning he would acknowledge them.

Bubba learned on his own and that's a tried and true method.  I don't think most people can learn that way, but that's the way so many great golfers learned in the past.  Seve Ballesteros is a good example.  He learned the game on his own with that 3 iron, hitting every kind of shot imaginable with it and no instruction. And Bubba learned when he got a golf club when he was 6 years old and started hitting all kinds of crazy shots around his house with a wiffle ball.

Again, I think most people benefit from instruction and flight monitors and high speed video.  But I also think the game is getting too scientific and a lot of people would benefit from learning what makes their unique swing work and how to figure some things out on their own.

He claims his dad taught him to swing, he had H.S. and college golf coaches.  I like Bubba, plus he's a lefty but he's walking a fine line with the never had a lesson claims.  He'd probably be more accurate saying he's never "paid" for a lesson, and he's never "hired" a swing coach.  Even Hogan admits he took advice from Jimmy Demaret and Harvey Penick.

+1

If you read what Bubba says, he said his dad claims to have taught him to golf like it's an inside joke that he didn't, like they're kidding about it.  Bubba was recruited and given a scholarship to Georgia in his junior year after already becoming a junior college All-American at Faulkner Community College.  Bubba was already shooting under par as a teenager and used to play against adults, even people he knew like teachers and whatever, and used to trounce them regularly.   He already had his swing by the time he was playing in high school.  Any tweaking he may have had from his coaches is not the same thing as taking lessons.  If a coach had personally worked with him, they would have changed his swing right away.

And Hogan never took lessons from Demaret or Penick.  Taking advice from someone once you're already a pro is not the same as taking lessons.  Hogan learned how to golf on his own and he learned a completely new swing on his own after he recovered from the accident he was in.  He's famous for that and the countless hours he spent practicing to hone his swing.   That's the way almost all professional golfers learned the game way back when. Most started out as caddies and learned by imitating the golfers they looped for and then trial and error to see what worked for them.   Instructors and coaching started getting bigger in the 1950's and after but there still were some golfers who learned on their own.

Bubbas not walking a fine line of anything.  Do you really think a coach taught him the swing he's got?  Do you think he's lying about never taking a lesson?  Bubba's swing is probably about 90% self taught with some tweaking by some coaches along the way.  I'm sure Bubba would give credit to someone if it was due, or if he didn't, I'd bet someone would come forward and say "Hey wait a minute, I taught Bubba how to golf".