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Golf Digest Instructor Interviews - Bad Advice


Note: This thread is 5239 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic. Thank you!

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In Golf Digest's November publication, they interviewed "40 great golf instructors under [the age of] 40". Each of the instructors gave a brief "2-minute" tip in the form of a paragraph or two of text. You can read them all online here .

There were some good tips in there. Some tips I'd heard before, some I'd figured out the hard way.

But there were several that contained advice that I thought was poor. I know, I know, a golf magazine with bad swing advice; hardly news worthy. But these were statements coming from $150/hr swing teachers hand-picked for their quality.

I'm far from a swing expert, but some statements simply left me doing a double-take. I've copied the questionable advice here (I used the author quote blocks to set them apart and attribute them to the appropriate instructor), emphasized the phrases of interest, and commented on why I disagree. I'm interested in hearing other's thoughts on these.

I know that just one or two paragraphs isn't a lot of room to give golf advice so I omitted any that seemed possibly too vague. These are tips that, to me, seem blatantly bad.



Wouldn't that be the other way around? You will tend to swing through the area you look at. If you look at the inside you will have a tendency to swing more to the inside, favoring an out-to-in swing path. If you look at the outside you will have a tendency to swing more to the outside, favoring an in-to-out swing path.



My guess is that majority of this forum will disagree with his statement that "The most common slicing mistake is a weak grip." The majority (everything? I can't think of any exceptions) of what I've seen Eric post on the subject disagrees with it.

His fix tip seems to be a method to get the left wrist flatter -- I'm not sure how else one could get the heel to lead the takeaway, trying to do it with a cupped wrist seems like it'd be awkward as the hands would stay ahead of the clubhead. I agree that getting a flat wrist is a good thing, and if the golfer's problem is truely an open clubface then it will possibly help fix the problem. But, and this is my second issue with his advice, if the problem is not an open clubface, then flattening the wrist will close the clubface and result in pulls. His advice is incomplete and produces no beneficial results if applied to someone who doesn't have one exact (not so common) problem.



That's the first time I've heard someone actually advise decelerating through any swing. First, I'm a firm believer that an accelerating club is easier to hold on path than a decelerating club. Second, that just seems like it sets the golfer up so that he can spontaneously make up his mind about whether he wants to accelerate, hold, or decelerate through impact, and last-second decisions are no way to groove a swing. Third, why not just advise golfers who over-accelerate to hold a steady stroke and adopt a mental trick or two to slowing down their swing? Having them adjust their actual swing seems unnecessary when the issue is strength.



I put the ball under my left eye, but that's as far forward as I dare move it. All the way under the left ear, and now the head is over the back of a blade putter. I know some people prefer that style, but to recommend everyone play that? I think gating putters will dislike that ball placement in general. (But I could be wrong.)





I put these together since they're basically the same thing. You should hit long irons with a ball just two inches inside the left heel? That's as far forward as I position the ball for my driver. Are they talking about 2 or 3 irons, or do that seriously mean I should have the ball that far forward for my 5 iron?



I would disagree that that's what causes a fat shot. Hands ahead of the ball and hitting down on the ball are desirable traits in full iron swings, why would they go wrong with a shorter pitch? The recent pitching videos from Erik have been an eye opener, I realize that leading hands and divots are unnecessary for pitching and not even the most forgiving method for it, but I don't believe that they're the cause of fat pitches. Someone who's hitting fat on pitches likely isn't doing so because their hands are too far ahead of the ball and the leading edge is causing them to grab more dirt before the ball than they would with a club with less leading edge.

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Anyone with other thoughts on these tips?

"Golf is an entire game built around making something that is naturally easy - putting a ball into a hole - as difficult as possible." - Scott Adams

Mid-priced ball reviews: Top Flight Gamer v2 | Bridgestone e5 ('10) | Titleist NXT Tour ('10) | Taylormade Burner TP LDP | Taylormade TP Black | Taylormade Burner Tour | Srixon Q-Star ('12)


Note: This thread is 5239 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic. Thank you!

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