Lessons: A Quantitative Review

[darvon]

I see on the Internet about a billion suggestions to "Go take a Lesson".

What I don't see is test results on taking lessons.

For a High Handicapper, what is significant improvement?  (5 strokes?)

What regimen of

Lessons/Practice/Play

would result in a sustained drop of 5 strokes per round in a HH?

5 lessons over 5 months with 2 hours of practice per week and 1 round per week?

Less?   More?

It's hard to evaluate the benefit of "take a lesson" without understanding the "minimum set" for significant (5 strokes) improvement.

It would be an important metric.

What would happen if you did half the work?  would you lose 2.5 strokes?  Or none at all?

If there are studies about lessons out there, let me know.  I would really like some data.  And I think others would also.

[iacas]

You can't quantify this kind of thing. Everyone's different, and there are lousy instructors out there (and lousy students who don't practice), and some people are naturally better than others at some things.

You simply up your chances of getting a lot from instruction by doing two simple things:

• Doing your research and choosing a good or great instructor.
• Dedicating yourself to the practice. You can't expect miracle results, you've gotta put in the work.

That's it.

I've seen a guy go from a 9 to a 1 in a few months (he didn't practice too much either - but he practiced HARD when he did), and I've seen a guy get a great lesson, never practice it, and just shoot the same old scores every time. I've seen guys who are talented get wrecked by getting a lesson from an idiot instructor, too. Both parts are important (though obviously you won't have anything to practice unless you've found the good instructor).

[mvmac]

Like Erik said you gotta find a competent teacher and you have to put in the hard work. And we all have different definitions of what hard work is Another huge part imo is understanding what you're trying to do and why.

[TourSpoon]

Here, this could help...or it could put you to sleep:

http://thesandtrap.com/t/39652/the-tourspoon-blog