Kind of a strange title. Sounds like the low tide isn't doing it's job of weeding out the bad ones.

12 minutes ago, iacas said:

Good golf instructors unfairly get lumped in with the sucky ones. "Well, Bob took ten lessons and he's no better. Why should I take lessons?"

Gotcha. Any potential solution other than the PGA becoming a lot more discerning?

1 minute ago, iacas said:

You don't even have to be in the PGA. So even that wouldn't fix things.

I know, but I figured a large percentage of instructors are PGA anyway and because it's sort of a "brand" name they could have some real influence on the quality of instruction if they wanted by strengthening that brand with higher standards. (What % of full time instructors are PGA?)

I agree, as I have been documenting in my blog, I went through five instructors before I finally found one who I felt was knowledgeable and cared enough to help me improve.  I was and am determined to become a single digit handicap golfer and fortunate enough to have the funds to pursue that goal despite all the wasted money spent on bad instructors.  I have a few friends and family members who were so frustrated from bad instruction they either gave up trying to improve or gave up the sport all together.  

I've become friends with my current instructor and have helped him market his business.  We spend a lot of time talking about the golf industry and how poor the golf instruction within the industry is.  It hurts his business because he often hears from prospective customers that they aren't interested in taking lessons because of poor experiences they had in the past with lousy instructors.    

Bad instructors hurt the good instructors and the golf industry overall.  

Unfortunately, that's business in general. The honest, ethical business owners and employees often suffer as a result of the mistrust created by the not so honest ones.

Those of you involved with this forum, as well as those involved with Evolvr, have done everything humanly possible to not only educate new golfers that there are poor professionals out there, but to also offer a high level alternative at a very affordable price. (It's greatly appreciated, BTW).

I don't know that you can do more than that to improve this profession.

My guess is that bad instructors don't really know that they're bad? They don't have any metric for their students.

4 minutes ago, JonMA1 said:

Unfortunately, that's business in general. The honest, ethical business owners and employees often suffer as a result of the mistrust created by the not so honest ones.

That's what I like about Erik and my current instructor, they recognize the majority of other instructors are not very good and are willing to speak out about them.  Unfortunately most of the instructors I've met are like doctors and don't want to say anything bad about their fellow instructors who they know are ripping off their students.  I don't know if that's a PGA pro thing but their unwillingness to call out their peers just hurts their industry. 

Very interesting subject. So many thoughts come to mind. My hope, my prediction, in fact, would be that slowly, over time, instruction will become more universally effective. It's a mixture of art and science. Before video, there was very little real science available. Now we have video and so much more, so at least teachers have something objective to use to structure their teaching.

But you hit the nail on the head that there is no objective measure to gauge a golf instructor. Some things are extremely difficult to measure. There are a couple of devastating diseases for which we have very few good treatments, and the main reason is that the nature of the diseases makes it nearly impossible to judge the efficacy of drug treatments. 

If I could clone myself I might start a company that did just this : Studied athletic instruction in an objective fashion. I think it would be a tedious process but not overly complicated, but it would cost a lot because you would need to fund long term studies on many, many subjects.

I think in many ways the system you and Wedzik have created is the best I've ever seen. Studying the game and coming up with the concepts like separation value,  the charting of the holes vis a vis shot selection, etc., are miles ahead of anything that's been done before. The way you very simply stand many long held "truths" on their head ("putting is 50% of the game," etc.) is a huge step in weeding out the crappy golf instruction out there. At least people - students AND teachers - have something valid to read and guide them along their way.

I bounced around with instructors for many years and as I now look back, got bad advice or the flavour of the day tips for too long. Then almost three years ago I tried out an instructor who is a real pro. First of all, he is always learning and trying to get better. For example, he was in Palm Springs last month and sought out Joe Mayo, aka Trackman Maestro, and ended up spending a few days on the range with him. My instructor has some connections at PGA West and gets to hang inside the ropes every year at the PGA tournament there, and he is there to learn. He also goes off and spends a lot of money to get better, attending events with Vision 54, and many others. He also invested in his own Flight Scope and that has been huge in my own understanding of what I was doing incorrect in my swing. He bases his teaching on evidence and not on what he read in Golf Digest last month.

We have worked together for almost three years and the things we work on don't change much, we just keep trying to work on the key aspects of my swing that need correcting, to the point that we just see each other for tune ups when bad habits creep in. I found in the past that too many instructors felt the need to give me a new tip each lesson so I felt I was getting my moneys worth, instead of working on what really needed to be fixed. Knowing what I know now, I think those tips came from them not really knowing what I needed to be working on in the first place. 

He is now a great friend and we go out and play golf together. Great for him, bad for me, he has received a new position as Head Instructor at a golf academy about an hour and a half away. Will be worth the drive as I hear the 4 pros at my home course, who are all great guys, do their lessons on the range, and I often chuckle with what I hear them teaching. My son is 14 and has seen the same instructor for the past year, and it really sucks that he is leaving as I don't trust anyone else with my son. 

So I agree from personal experience, there are many, perhaps a majority, of golf pros out there who are doing more harm than good. 

...but a lighthouse stands out even more proud in a sinking tide. Be one, have faith, let results be your gage and march on. 

For every 10 Bobs who have taken 10 lessons and haven't gotten anywhere, there is one Tom who has.

Quick question. In regards to an instructor becoming  an instructor, do they have to pass exams to atain a certain level? i know it may be a stupid question but im sure a lot of these "youtube" instructors have no formal training.

For those that are qualified maybe its not what they teach that is the problem but how they teach it and nore importantly how they communicate with their students. I read a lot of posts on forums saying a persons instructor taught a certain swing and that it was "their way or no way" with no flexibility or thought of an individuals needs. Maybe as part of training instructors need to go on a custmer service course or something?

1 minute ago, iacas said:

No. You can simply declare yourself a pro and begin charging money for lessons.

 

Wow, that just seems crazy. I mean, if you are a former tour pro or a scratch player the fair enough but for an "average Joe" to be able to charge to teach people, possibly the wrong things that will at the least harm their game and at worst maybe their health/body. Thats quite an eye opener. thanks for the insight. 

5 minutes ago, RussUK said:

Wow, that just seems crazy. I mean, if you are a former tour pro or a scratch player the fair enough but for an "average Joe" to be able to charge to teach people, possibly the wrong things that will at the least harm their game and at worst maybe their health/body. Thats quite an eye opener. thanks for the insight. 

It was surprising to me as well. I'm sure this is one of the main reasons why there is so much misinformation in golf. Some of these instructors are having people do crazy stupid stuff and their clients end up getting injured.

I paid about $300 for 6 lessons from "a guy."    I got no results.   I think the reason was, he was coaching hard from the very first minute.   Every swing, he had some different thing that he wanted me to correct.   It was just too much.  

A few weeks ago, I spoke to the actual teaching pro where I play.   I told him I would like to try him for a lesson.    I told him I wanted him to figure out the one thing I need to work on the most.   I told him I wouldn't mind if he just stood there and watched me hit balls for half an hour before he gave me any instruction.   He said that's what he intends to do.   So I think this is the guy I need. 

For $50, or whatever, if I can just have a teaching pro tell me the one most important thing that I need to work on, and some help in implementing it, that will be well worth the money.  I don't need 12 things to work on at once.  

21 minutes ago, iacas said:

Former tour players often make the worst instructors.

In any sport (subbing out "tour players" for "pro athletes" or whatever). I'm reading a chapter in a book right now about that. The book is… "This is Your Brain on Sports."

I agree.  It seems like, in many sports, it's the guys who struggled, who were journeymen, make the best coaches, because the game didn't come to them as naturally as it did to the elite players.   They had to learn.   I think if you had to learn, it helps you teach. 

I believe I have a very good instructor and have had him for the last year and a half or so, with a lesson every 3 or 4 weeks. By working on different priority pieces, as you call them, over that period, he got me to change the look of my swing very dramatically, from the typical horrible, falling backwards, over the top swing of many amateurs to something that looks a lot more proficient, with correct posture, turn, shift, sequencing, club on plane, inside-out path, better impact position, extension, etc...  It is still a work in progress, of course.

The problem? I haven't seen the results I expected in the scoring: my index has dropped maybe 1.5 points from roughly 11.5 to 10 in the same time, with a brief stint (1 revision) at 8.8. I expected (and still do) a bit more. My GIR number is roughly the same and has gone backwards at times. My distance, especially with the irons is not very good and hasn't improved that much, despite no longer flipping all that badly.

Perhaps, I am not doing all the things in the swing that I should while I am playing (and only doing them when practicing on one piece, or during a lesson), but I can't be thinking about the swing when playing... Or, it could be because I have been in the process of changing one thing after another for well over a year and haven't had the time yet to let things settle down until it is my new swing. Still, I am committed and will stay the course as long as I can see improvements in the before vs. after swing videos.  Eventually, the scores should follow, I would think/hope.

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

@phillyk, just my honest assessment, but the PGA does almost nothing for instructors. The instruction content in the PGA levels ranges from horrible to bad. You're better off just getting through the levels, but seeking actual instructional training elsewhere.

Kinda hope someone brings in the Bobs to clean house at the PGA by asking some tough questions.

Haha I'm thinking of a perfect world where someone invents something that tracks the handicaps of each student of each PGA teacher. I'd be funny to see the numbers for each on a big, comprehensive website with their "stats" as a teacher. Anyway, I'll go back to day dreaming of other things now....