Finally got a lesson

[Norm66]

I've been looking for a golf instructor for a while that I liked and last night ran into one that may very well work out for me. He's a late 50s guy with a swing that looks like the Pros (to me anyway). I hit a bucket of balls first and went in to talk to him afterward and sure enough he had an opening.

He had me hit 5 balls with my 7 iron while he just watched from both sides & the back. Then he started into his lesson trying to set me straight.

First, my grip, which I thought at least I had that right. My left hand was OK, but I was holding the club too much into the hand on my right hand and also had my thumb too far up on top of the shaft. At full backswing my thumb was pushing the club up instead of letting the wrists cock fully and forcing my hands apart. It also allows me to use much less grip pressure. The grip tip alone was worth the money I paid.

Then we talked about stance, turns out I've been too bent over, and setup especially how far away from the ball to stand. It makes so much sense, but he just had me assume my stance and let my hands hang free. That's where the grip of the club goes. Duh!

Finally it turns out my left elbow has been bending entirely too much as well. I'm going to have to work on keeping my hands away from my body without getting my arms too tense. That's probably going to be the hardest habit for me to break. He also wants me to hold my finish for a couple seconds to ensure I'm making a full turn.

By the end of the lesson, I was hitting a 7 iron 140 yards with my left arm just barely reaching parallel to the ground. Previously on a perfect full shot I was hitting it 150 yards so I'm optimistic about gaining some distance as well as accuracy from just this one lesson. I'm scheduled for another on Monday and then I'll probably switch to every other Monday so I can have enough time to absorb the lessons. He says he likes to teach beginners 5 lessons and that will cover all the clubs in the bag and at least get me on the right track.

My advice to beginners is the same as everyone else's: Get a lesson! I've been playing 11 months and it's going to be hard to break some of my bad habits already. Cheers to PGA professional instructors!

[Bird]

I was going to post a similar post because I had the same experience just 1 hour ago. Yesterday I was reading the post on the slice (I have the same problem with my driver and longer clubs). I met this guy (probably 60) who is a PGA instructor. I have been watching, reading and practicing a lot and was quiet happy with my swing and saw nothing wrong with it myself (of course not).

However, like for you he changed my grip, I was standing to near the ball just like you, I was sliding my right hip during my backswing so I had not much space for my arms coming down and I was not following through in the right manner. I was not facing the target with my chest when I finished my swing (did not finish my swing).

I started with 6I and went to my H4 hybrid and MAN! am I the happiest guy around Of course my shots are not all going straight but when they go right they even have a slight draw. Sometimes I got loooooong beautiful draws exactly where I was aiming and that’s the first time for me.

I still have a long way to go and these things don’t happen over night but least now I know what I was doing wrong. I paid the same price for this as for 10 buckets of balls on the practice range and he provided the balls during my lesson. Money well spent, Amen.

[Norm66]

In one lesson I went from three consecutive 9-hole games with zero, nada, nix in the way of fairways hit to hitting 5 of 7 fairways. I've got another lesson tonight and I couldn't be looking more forward to it. What words of magic will my pal Gary utter to improve my swing just a little bit more? :0)

[Franco!]

thats good. lessons are a great thing and you'll see drastic improvement soon enough. The best part is that you like him, if you didn't, you'd dread going to some guy who's just going to bark orders at you. Thats why I didn't like having a teacher in his 50s or 60's. When he's in his 30's, he feels more like a brother and I don't have a problem having a conversation with him, or just picking on him.

[Lbob]

It is really sad to see people on the range practicing bad habits. I remember last week watching a guy beat a bucket of balls. He had a reverse pivot that was so bad that most of the time he had a problem even hitting the ball. I mean literally I watched him swing and miss the ball completely two or three times. Other times he would barely top the ball. But he did hit a few decent shots out of sheer luck, of course this was in a jumbo bucket of 100 balls. That guy could practice till hell freezes over and never hit the ball with any kind of consistancy. But the idea of taking a lesson probably never entered his head. He will spend a hundred bucks on range balls, and he'll waste every dollar. Unless you are a real athlete and can self-teach a swing you need a teacher, because practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

[Shindig]

  Lbob said:

It is really sad to see people on the range practicing bad habits. I remember last week watching a guy beat a bucket of balls. He had a reverse pivot that was so bad that most of the time he had a problem even hitting the ball. I mean literally I watched him swing and miss the ball completely two or three times. Other times he would barely top the ball. But he did hit a few decent shots out of sheer luck, of course this was in a jumbo bucket of 100 balls. That guy could practice till hell freezes over and never hit the ball with any kind of consistancy. But the idea of taking a lesson probably never entered his head. He will spend a hundred bucks on range balls, and he'll waste every dollar. Unless you are a real athlete and can self-teach a swing you need a teacher, because practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

It's even more painful when you have a handicap as bad as we do... probably better overall if we aren't giving swing advice, but still, we can recognize bad bad mistakes. I saw one guy doing what I used to do.

What follows is a description of a bad swing; do not attempt! The following are discrete steps: - Stand wherever you can to put the club behind the ball - Make a natural backswing - Force your wrists from there into a position such that the club is exactly parallel. - Rotate body. - Begin forward swing, unrotating the body slowly - Force your wrists back to natural - Lower your hands right before you hit the ball. - Stop immediately when you hit the ball. Before taking a lesson, I did this because I had it in my head it was the right thing to do. One lesson cured me of that awful swing. But I see other people doing it almost everytime I'm at the range!

[sboardz006]

I'm going to start taking lessons again, but its hard to find time when I can because I play baseball aswell.

[Norm66]

  Franco! said:

The best part is that you like him, if you didn't, you'd dread going to some guy who's just going to bark orders at you. Thats why I didn't like having a teacher in his 50s or 60's. When he's in his 30's, he feels more like a brother and I don't have a problem having a conversation with him, or just picking on him.

Well, if he just barked orders at me I wouldn't have finished the first lesson. Besides, I'm 6'-3" & over 300lbs. He wasn't going to bark anything at me. ;^)

I don't have a problem with taking lessons from an older guy (Gary's 64 BTW) at all. I look at it like I do doctors: If I have a rare type of cancer I want the young doctor just out of med school who knows all the latest techniques & treatments. But if I have a gash in my head it's the 60 something ER doctor I want working on me because he's done it thousands of times. My golf swing is definitely at the stitches stage rather than the nuclear medicine stage so I'm perfectly happy with my older instructor. Plus, he's just a really nice guy. Cheers! ps- I beat my previous best 9-hole score by two strokes (42) last night after only two lessons. Of course I lost it after the turn and wound up with 53 for 95 total, but what the heck.

[plainsman]

I had my first golf lesson today. It was an hour session working on swing basics. I'll go back for 1/2 hour sessions once a month. I haven't played in over 10 years and wasn't very good then. The lessons should keep some of my bad playing habits buried in the past.

In retrospect, I should have paid for a few lessons when first starting out but was too cheap. Instead I spent a couple of years playing from one side of the rough to the other and never really learned to consistently hit a good iron or wood shot. There is a moral to the story in here somewhere.

The club pro is a younger guy with lots of patience. He didn't bark anything. Instead it was simply what he saw and a suggestion to correct it.

[Leek]

Great stuff guys. One major caution: soon the instructor will ask you to make changes that are uncomfortable and will for a time, make it much more difficault to hit an acceptable shot. The most important thing is to practice whatever the instructor teaches you until it is ingrained, then better ball striking will come naturally.

[colhun]

  Leek said:

Great stuff guys. One major caution: soon the instructor will ask you to make changes that are uncomfortable and will for a time, make it much more difficault to hit an acceptable shot. The most important thing is to practice whatever the instructor teaches you until it is ingrained, then better ball striking will come naturally.

The real secret is to have your lessons in the "off season" (if you have such a thing) that way you are sorted out by the time the gof season comes around again.

I had 6 lessons between Oct and Feb and hit 200 balls a week instead of playing winter league golf for first time ever. The result...........hit the ground running and got to single figures handicap for first time ever. Listen to the pro, he knows what he's talking about. just a question of trust and practising.

[jmcd009]

i have a few questions about lessons....any input would be appreciated.

i use to have a little fade....and hit the ball really high. when i wasn't playing well it would turn into pulls (mostly with irons) and big slices with the driver.

i've tried all kinds of tips and drills but none of them are working consistently. i catch little hot streaks....@ the range i might hit some straight shots that have good distance with a draw...a couple with the old fade (but not by design) and couple will go anywhere. on the course i'll pull a ball 20 yards right of the green....drop another one then land it on the green.

i've had a lesson before (it's been 4 years since my last one)....trying to fix the swing on my own definitely enhanced my understanding of the swing but i'm having trouble executing what i know i should be doing (especially on the course).


am i better off waiting until the start of next year or going for a lesson now? (i live in the northeast so i dont play in the winter and only play occasionally in the fall)....i do go to the range occasionally in the winter.

how many lessons would you recommend? right now im considering going for a single session or a series of 3. i only care about my ball striking....not really interested in short game for now.

any advice how to maintain the advice from the lesson?

[Leek]

  jmcd009 said:

i have a few questions about lessons....any input would be appreciated.

What's your handicap?

[onez0183]

About the grip on the top hand. Does anyone ever have a problem where there top thumb slides down the club on the end of the backswing when the wrists fully hinges. This happens to me when my hands get sweaty and it ruins all tempo among other things. I think my wrists may not be very flexible.

[jmcd009]

  Leek said:

What's your handicap?

ive never kept a handicap since i rarely play 18 holes. my best round was a +3 38. i usually shoot in the mid 40s but when i hit rough stretches i usually stop keeping score. id guess im in the low 20s.

[iacas]

  jmcd009 said:

ive never kept a handicap since i rarely play 18 holes. my best round was a +3 38. i usually shoot in the mid 40s but when i hit rough stretches i usually stop keeping score. id guess im in the low 20s.

Not many 20s EVER shoot +3 (or +6 total). EVER... Handicap is a measure of potential, remember, not your average scores. "mid-40s" is 45, say, and that's about an 18.

Accurate information helps. You can post 9-hole scores.

[Leek]

  jmcd009 said:

ive never kept a handicap since i rarely play 18 holes. my best round was a +3 38. i usually shoot in the mid 40s but when i hit rough stretches i usually stop keeping score. id guess im in the low 20s.

How good do you want to get? How hard are you prepared to work to get it?

It's impossible to tell what you are doing by description. The thing about lessons is, the information you get should be what you need to correct (or most likely over-correct) at that point in time. It's a progression that is not a defined straight line, but more of a zig zag. A lesson every few years is probably a waste of time. A series of about 6 should be much more effective. As far as taking during the season vs. the off-season, I think either is just fine.

[jmcd009]

  Leek said:

How good do you want to get? How hard are you prepared to work to get it?

thanks for the input....one day i'd like to get into single digits...but i'm going back to school so i won't have much time or money to practice....it seems like the best thing for me is to hold off on the lessons until i can commit more time and money to my game..... i still have fun regardless what i'm shooting so i guess i can wait