My first lesson, would like your input!

[Joshsmit56001]

So I had my first lesson on Wednesday with a pga pro.  I was impressed with what he did and I am excited to work on the things he gave me to work on. This is how it went:

1. Spent about 5-10 minutes warming up and having him check out my swing before he said anything.
2. First thing he did was ask about what my swing and the issues I was having with it and where I wanted to go with it.
3. Looked at my posture, grip, and setup to make sure he didn't need to make adjustments before going forward.
4. Let me know that I needed to transfer my weight on my feet throughout my swing because I was not doing this and was not using my lower body as well as I needed to.
5. Took some video of my swing and went through the other areas I needed to work on, keeping it simple.  One of the other areas he wanted me to work on was to try and lessen my backswing as I go past parallel and I can suffer on consistency ny doing this.
6. Did some drills where he moved the ball forward in my stance so I would have to "transfer weight forward" to be able to hit the ball still and not the ground.  I felt this was a great drill to try and get me to transfer my weight onto my forward leg.
7. Finished with telling me to work on those couple things and to practice!  He emphasized that I needed to practice even without a ball to make sure that I am ready to move forward at my next lesson.  He also said that it was up to me to call him to setup the next lesson when I was ready.

Overall I really liked the way he taught.  I liked how he did not give me too many things to work on and my mind did not feel cluttered.  I know exactly what 2 things to practice and feel like I am moving forward and will get better.  This first lesson was inside too so I could focus on the movements of the swing, and not so much of where the ball goes.  Lastly, I liked how he told me that it was up to me to contact him when I felt I was ready for the next lesson as this puts me in the drivers seat of doing the next lesson when I felt I was ready, as people move at different speeds.

I think that it is important to feel comfortable with the person you are taking lessons from and I drive 1 hour to go to this guy because of what I have seen from him.  I talked to a pga pro that was closer to me and all he said was "we will get you out and start working on your short game" and I felt like he didn't care about what I wanted to work on and I was just another lesson that he does the same with every other golfer.  Even though he might be closer, I did not like the first impression I got from him.

Is this what others have experienced in lessons?

[rehmwa]

I think weight transfer is a pretty common swing lesson up front.  It's a great piece of something right up front that helps consistency and performance.

I also asked a lot about mechanics, etc.  He answered them all, then gave me one or two keys to tie it all together so I only had to think about a couple things get all the input in place.  Keep it simple.  Found some videos of pro swings and he seems to want me to match Faldo's swing after a bunch of comparisons....FWIW thought it was the best fit for now.

Your 1st lesson is pretty close to my first lesson.  Lots of back to front instruction and drills.  Except I also was encouraged to open up my full rotation (start to finish) whereas you noted he 'lessened' your back swing.  (I actually hit better if I take a big enough backswing to catch the club head over my left shoulder with my peripheral vision - weird)

2nd lesson - it was clear that I had practiced and had developed a very high level of weight transfer - we then trimmed that to what fitted, got my right knee to a bit less left/right motion but more anchoring - more like digging it a bit.  fit it all together.  It was crap for a few swings and then it all fit together.  Talked about release timing, etc.  My last range session I didn't have a curve or mishit in my first 100 strikes.  Then, from over hitting, I finally ripped a blister off my left thumb and stopped for the day (probably a week) - as once my thumb hurt I then couldn't really hit the same.

One neat thing from the 2nd lesson was he took video from the beginning of my first lesson and showed side by side with video from end of my 2nd.  Big difference.

Only having had two lessons - The improvement was dramatic in consistency, power and taking the right amount of divots.  I leveraged a lot of it into half swings (less transfer but more forward throughout) and that's better.  Now for chipping and putting.....

Do the drills....you'll get better, no matter how dorky the drills

Keep it simple...If you have 3 or 4 things that you are thinking about, pick the first one and try to make the other three automatically tie to that one.  For me, just the initial weight loading at setup (a bit to the right) kind of automatically triggers my proper legwork on the backswing and reminds me to fully rotate through at the end - 3 for 1,,,,not bad.

Get your grips sized right...or you'll get blisters

Replace your gloves when they wear through....or your tiny grips will give you even worse blisters

[boogielicious]

Sounds like a good instructor to me.  The drill in #6 is a good one.