Funniest/Worst Driving range advice

What is the funniest or worst advise you have overheard or been given?

I was having a session at the range the other week and as there were only about 5 guys spread over 24 bays any talking was easily heard.

So im taking a break and the "armchair pro" 3 bays down turns to the guy next to him just after he had sliced a shot into the next county and offered the following sage piece of advice, " your problem there is your hands. Because you are gripping your shaft so tight your balls are spraying all over the place"

needless to say, being a man with a childish sense of humour, i almost died laughing. Only thing was i thought i had said the following in my head but inadvertantly said it aloud. "haha shaft!", only to hear the guy 10 bays down reply with "haha balls".

Lets face it, we love this sport partly due to all the inuendos

I was just off the practice green at Ft. Sill Golf Club in Oklahoma. I'm in about 3" deep rough, and am practicing chip shots with a SW to a cup that's about 10 feet away. The idea is to hit the shot smoothly and pop it onto the green without too much momentum.

This 30-something "distance runner" golfer with his 10-year-old son in tow approaches me.

"Sir," he says, "you really should be chipping with a 7 iron. It's much more reliable."

I told him I was working on short shots out of the fluff with little green to work with.

"Sir, that's too difficult a shot for you. Take it from me, I'm a 7 Handicap."

I quietly told him to "Go away..."  - and he did!

This is one of my favorite stories. I'm playing a $7 9 hole public park course, and I get paired up with a 70 something year old nice guy. I'm even par through 6, and he's probably 16 over. He is giving me advice all round telling me how I can improve my distance if I just put it further back in my stance(I hit my 7 iron 175 so I really don't have a problem with distance) and I didn't take his advice. We get to to the 7th par 3 165 I hit an 8 short, and he drops another ball, and says try this... He has me get in my stance and puts the ball 6 inches behind my rear foot. I said " I can't hit that!" I take a swing burying my iron in the ground, the ball goes no more than 10 feet in the air and lands less than a foot from the hole. He is so happy, tells me I told you so, while I'm shaking my wrist from the 6 inch divot I took. It's still the closest I've come to a hole in one lol

I never gave advice on the range, but I saw one guy last week who I would have liked to put an ax in his hand, and have him split cord wood for me all day with that exact swing.

I played with my brother in law, and he was struggling with a slice during the round, and I showed him afterwards how I used the Slice Eliminator a pro showed me to practice swings and it helped me a lot. He tried one swing, bumped it with his club, got sort of mad, so I shut up about it. My first and last effort at giving golf advice. Of course he never stops giving advice to anybody with a club in their hand.

Now that's funny! I guess his advice is to stop hitting shots into a position that is "too difficult" for you to recover from? Why didn't I think of that?! :-D

Few years ago at the range guy watches me for a few hits comes over and without any unnecessary dialogue proceeds to grab my shaft as I took address, says "here" as he swings it straight up with me still holding me, "to here" as he walks it behind me and then a final "to here" as he walks it back around to impact position - and then looks at me in affirmation and walks away. I think he meant to guide my club route from an outside to inside swing.

I couldn't stop laughing as all it did is kept reminding me of "this dumb guy, to that dumb guy, to that dumb guy".

The worst "advice" I ever heard was from a dad to his young son next to me on the driving range.

Dad: "Now just keep practicing that so you can get good at it"

Son: "I just wanna go home!"

Dad (frustrated): "Not until you're done practicing!"

It made me sad to hear that interaction, because if it continues I know the kid won't ever like golf. To him it'll just be something he had to do for his dad, rather than something he enjoyed to do without need for encouragement.

As to funny advice, the best I ever heard was someone saying, "You're doing it all wrong! You need to swing more like Furyk, he's got the best-looking swing on tour!"

I had to choke back laughter on that one.

Would have been a par, though, after you already hit once ;)

Classic !  LOLOL !!    Learned to never give unsolicited advice after receiving so much... probably worst experience I had was paired with this young guy that was swinging out of his shoes - slicing EVERY tee shot out of bounds -it was pathetic.   I was playing well for me - probably wound up somewhere in the high 80's back then.    He was typical macho type A personality ... I felt compelled to mention that I suffered from the same slicing problem & completely cured it when I read the Stack & Tilt book & videos ... he said he noticed I was doing that & his instructor told him to stay as far away from the S&T; swing as possible. That response just blew me away & it gave me a little more incentive to play my best for the rest of the round ... as I beat him by at least 30 strokes with that S&T; swing  ...

The worst advice I ever heard, but actually I hear it a lot, is the guy who can barely get the ball in the air himself trying to teach his girlfriend how to swing.

I want to walk up to her, give her $75 and say, "Go see the pro inside the clubhouse. I'll keep this guy busy in the meantime."

I keep my mouth and ears closed. I am usually at the range early before those guys show up. If you want to get in some quiet practice, show up at 9am with the temps around freezing. Only on a few occasions while playing or ranging, someone might be hacking all over the place and say something like "What am I doing wrong?..." I might give them the old Lee Trevino line about "You're standing too close to the ball....after you hit it..." or try to joke it up a bit by saying "You took up golf". It certainly isn't MY place to comment on someone's swing, or is it YOUR place to tell me anything about mine. Unless you are a teaching pro and are genuinely interested in giving away free advice (but making sure I want to hear it), keep walking. The only comments I might give is to one of my buddies who really wants to know something in particular, but nothing that would mess him up. Maybe a little stance tweak or grip strength or something. Usually its along the lines of "Just don't kill it, take your time- but not too much, or "pick it up, sunshine"... etc. But they WANT to know because they seem to trust me- And I know, that giving them some little piece of advice to make their game a bit better certainly won't lead to them suddenly improve enough to beat me. Simply because they'll forget the next time around. And the last comment I received at the range wasn't swing advice- it was more of an ego boost. I will usually pick out the 'best' balls in the bucket (110 balls) to save for last and use those for a better sense of what's going on. I might wind up with 10-15 nearly new "non-range" balls of different brands; Bridgestones, Srixons, Callaways and the odd Titleist. I work my way thru the bucket and then do a 'muscle memory' type of drill. I will tee up, go thru my pre-shot routine, address the ball ("Hello, ball"), then swing. After it lands I repeat the process... Try and do the same thing each time. I sometimes get in a 'zone', especially if the first 3-4 are exactly what I'm looking for. I did this little drill for every one of the 12 or so I had left and every one was striped right to the marker at the end within 5-10yds either side- same flight path and distance. I hadn't even looked around the whole time, It went like clockwork- PLINK... PLINK...PLINK...(well, a bit longer in between, but you get the idea). I finally hit the last one and turned to start packing, when I looked around there were about 3-4 guys standing just off to the side where I couldn't see them while I was 'zoning'. The one guy said "Nice demonstration, they paying you to make us look bad?" Apparently, they started watching every shot after about the 4th PLINK. They didn't want to walk past to leave because they didn't want to distract me. I just said "Thanks, but I probably wouldn't have noticed in the state I was in- that felt goooood." Went out and played the next day and hit only about 4 fairways- barely. :censored:

I would have gone to the GUY and said- here's $75, go learn something from the pro and I'll keep HER busy in the meantime

Surely is a lot of free advice in the world today whether it is golf or other things.  Most of it is worth what you paid for it.

I dont mind if it someone i know who may say "this worked for me so may be worth a try" but the guys who come up and say "you shouldnt hit like that" do my head in!.

only yesterday i was at the range working on my swing. I have recently switched t a single axis swing and im hitting better than ever, this guy (looks like he's covered himself in glue and run through the Titleist section ofthe proshop) turns to me after ive hit a lovely 4 hybrid shot and shakes his head at me.

He turns round mutters "this is a proper golf swing" hits the side of the bay causing everyone to duck, then changes bays.

Now, im not a great golfer but im pretty sure you're not supposed to hit the bay dividers. the phrase "all the gear but no idea" sprung to mind

One that stood out for me was when I was playing around with my driver one day last summer during my "The driver's out of the bag because I can't help but hit a massive slice" phase, I was trying to teach myself a draw. I was doing everything I could to try to get it to come back. Two old guys kept telling me that I was pointing out to the right, aiming right, etc. I finally just broke down and begged them to stop: "Guys, I know I'm setting up to the right, but that's the only way I'm every going to hit the push draw I'm trying to learn". They kept grumbling about stuff that just showed they didn't understand how ball flight works.

(When I finally took my lesson to fix the driver, it turned out I just needed to put the ball farther up in my stance to give the club time to close; everything else was great and I can hit that shot now, subject to practice)

Bringing this back because yesterday while playing a guy I was playing with was hooking everything. So the other guy in the group decided it was because staying back on his back foot and coming over the top and swinging left that was causing the hooks. Now I just let it go, but obviously if your googling it's because your coming in to out with a closed club face to the path.