Had my first golf lesson.... What the .... is happening!

[Jeremie Boop]

Ok, so Saturday had my first ever golf lesson. Pretty much thought I was on the right track with my swing, just needing something to help with making the direction more consistent. After my 30 minute lesson I was told basically only my grip was right.

Played a round of golf yesterday.... It was like I started golf all over again, couldn't hit a drive for anything. Only 2 things that I was able to do semi well was hit my aw *130 yd club* and putt. I had 4 pars on the front all because I was able to hit the green with my 2nd/3rd shot from 130 pretty much every time. After the 7th hole I was lucky to get a look at par let alone bogey.... Never been more disappointed in my life. Up until the lesson I had made steady progress getting more consistent and playing better each week/round basically.

So, here's the real question. Is it a general rule that your game will go to utter crap once you start taking lessons then come back as you are able to apply all the ideas/fixes presented or is this a case of the instructor telling me too much at once. I felt like I had so many things I had to think about doing differently that I couldn't just swing the club. I had set up another lesson while I was there Saturday, but I'm really thinking about cancelling it after yesterday's round.

[Mr. Desmond]

Lessons will get you thinking. Thinking is bad during a shot. Bad shots lead to loss of confidence. When you lose confidence, you go see a golf shrink. When you go see a golf shrink, you start babbling to yourself about the process. Don't take lessons.

:-)

Joking.

The first three sentences apply most of the time. Sometimes, lessons can help right off the bat. It depends. I need to process everything, so my game goes to crap after lessons. Some guys who don't think can play well after lessons.

If you're like me, if you think the lesson did point out patterns on which you need work, process it, get a kids club and get in a mirror, and take the lesson one step at a time. Practice the pattern every day inside with a (kids) club and mirror. Repeat.

[Slice of Life]

Assuming the guy knows what he's doing (and we know what they say about assumptions...), stick with it. I'd been shooting mid-to-high 90s most of this season and then I got a lesson from Erik. Next day I shot a 103. This past weekend at that same course, I shot an 87.

Gotta let the stuff sink in, you ARE re-learning how to golf....the right way. But you'll probably learn much quicker. (Again, assuming this guy isn't a hack...)

[Jeremie Boop]

One thing that concerned me is he has me "reaching" a bit for the ball. My hands were apparently a little close but instead of moving me back enough to have my arms straight down, which is what I've read/seen is the correct way, he's got my hands forward of straight down. The two things he said that I knew were problems are my alignment, which of course comes from adjusting for my bad shots, and my tempo, which is super inconsistent. He gave me this 21-7 tempo audio file to try to match when I swing. He also pointed out my timing being off but I kind of lump that in with tempo because if my tempo is the same, my timing should match up.

Another thing that was strange is that instead of taming my draw, the changes caused me to hit a fade/slice almost every shot.... That's not the direction I want to go, fade is ok if I learn to do it on purpose but I do NOT want to go back to slicing the ball.

[Mr. Desmond]

The ball might be going right if you're clubface is open at impact but your path is not sufficiently in to out Nothing wrong with the hands being slightly ahead of the ball Nothing wrong with using tour tempo to find your tempo, even though it sounds like he's doing too much too soon

[Vector Zero]

Originally Posted by Jeremie Boop

One thing that concerned me is he has me "reaching" a bit for the ball. My hands were apparently a little close but instead of moving me back enough to have my arms straight down, which is what I've read/seen is the correct way, he's got my hands forward of straight down.

I have to admit that this would make me a bit uneasy too but the guy is a pro so I say stick with it for now.

[Jeremie Boop]

That's kind of what bothered me. I think working on one or two things at a time would have worked better. Forgot he even started having me change my balance as typically have more weight on the balls of my feet too. I think he adjusted every part of my swing at once rofl. he said my swing path was too far inside to out and put 3 balls in a line and was telling me to swing over the ball towards my target.

like this:

O             O             O

Say those are the balls, I was hitting the middle ball and trying to swing the club over the front one. They balls were about 18" apart or so. I felt like it was near impossible to get my club over that front ball, but maybe that was the point. Once I started doing that is when the fade/slice started happening. And reaching for the ball a bit seemed like it made me have trouble squaring the club face.

The night before I went out to the inside 9 at a golf course locally and set up a ball with a tee on either side and didn't hit either tee and that seemed to help me a lot more than this drill did.

like this:

,

O

'

[Mr. Desmond]

I like your drill better than his, but instead of 2 tees you could use three balls several inches apart and hit the middle ball O O With this drill, you can also see where you're taking a divot - Either behind or forward of the ball

[Jeremie Boop]

While sitting here bored at work I decided to look for a good tempo/timing drill on youtube. What I noticed is that one video really seemed to hit on my main problem. My take away may be started with the arms instead of my hips. Everything in the swing is initiated by the hips or at least is supposed to be right? So the backswing started by turning the hips/body, get to the top and then downswing is initiated the same way, by turning the hips?

[Slice of Life]

Originally Posted by Jeremie Boop

While sitting here bore at work I decided to look for a good tempo/timing drill on youtube. What I noticed is that one video really seemed to hit on my main problem. My take away may be started with the arms instead of my hips. Everything in the swing is initiated by the hips or at least is supposed to be right? So the backswing started by turning the hips/body, get to the top and then downswing is initiated the same way, by turning the hips?

I start both at the same time.

[Bogeysaurus]

I went from having an ugly swing that sometimes got things done to not being able to get the ball off the ground after my first lesson.  Two lessons later I was hitting the ball better than ever.

Three more lessons and there were ups and downs but after 2 months of lessons and practice I'm way better than before.  Granted I was a 35+ hc before and now maybe low 20s.

At this point though I think time and practice is what I need coupled with videoing myself and reviewing.  I know what I need to do now, just have to get myself to consistently do it.

Stick with it, it'll take a few lessons but once you get out of your head it should probably help.

[Jeremie Boop]

Originally Posted by Bogeysaurus

I went from having an ugly swing that sometimes got things done to not being able to get the ball off the ground after my first lesson.  Two lessons later I was hitting the ball better than ever.

Three more lessons and there were ups and downs but after 2 months of lessons and practice I'm way better than before.  Granted I was a 35+ hc before and now maybe low 20s.

At this point though I think time and practice is what I need coupled with videoing myself and reviewing.  I know what I need to do now, just have to get myself to consistently do it.

Stick with it, it'll take a few lessons but once you get out of your head it should probably help.

I went back to the range tonight and focused only on the tempo work. Had my headphones on and concentrated on hitting the tones that marked the start of swing, top of back swing, and impact positions. I hit a lot of good shots that had a nice 5 yd draw and landed right in the area I was aimed, but I also had a lot of shots where the shots where horrible. I realized that my main problem wasn't hitting the right positions on the tone but my speed wasn't  consistent. I'd start out too fast and have to slow my back swing down to hit the tone correctly. I never realized how hard it is to set a repeatable and reliable tempo.

[Mr. Desmond]

Did you find your tempo? 24/8 27/9

[Mr. Desmond]

I think you are better off working on the patterns he taught you as a priority , and tempo as secondary Then work more on tempo as the patterns are ingrained

[golftlist]

To be honest, I am surprised he said your grip is right. I would say you are in the good position since I believe grip is probably the most important thing for beginners. I am currently struggling with my strong grip and trying to change to neutral grip. When I checked the players on the drive range, 90% of them have the strong grip. Change is always not comfortable, but that means you actually learned some thing.

[Jeremie Boop]

Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond

Did you find your tempo?

24/8

27/9

21/7 was the tempo he decided on for me. It seems pretty close to what feels comfortable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Desmond

I think you are better off working on the patterns he taught you as a priority , and tempo as secondary

Then work more on tempo as the patterns are ingrained

I can work on the tempo and still set up the alignment pattern. The more I worked on matching the tempo the better my timing got, which helped me stay on line better. I hit so many shots in a row that landed on probably a 10 yd circular green @ 150yd that it really was nice. I don't think I've ever made so many shots on target in a row before. I probably hit about 1/3 of my shots correctly out of I would say just over 100. That's definitely not great, but it is an improvement over where I started.

Originally Posted by golftlist

To be honest, I am surprised he said your grip is right. I would say you are in the good position since I believe grip is probably the most important thing for beginners. I am currently struggling with my strong grip and trying to change to neutral grip. When I checked the players on the drive range, 90% of them have the strong grip. Change is always not comfortable, but that means you actually learned some thing.

I only recently changed my grip to be correct, and to be honest I was surprised that it was correct myself. I spent a lot of time working on my grip too, up until 3 weeks ago I had a strong grip too, could see 3 knuckles on my left hand, now it's closer to neutral with only 2 knuckles showing.

[stoverny]

I think lessons are a mixed bag because just like doctors some are excellent and some not so good.  It is hard to know which kind you have, but you probably need to give it a few sessions at least.  It is certainly possible it is just part of the learning process.  Could also be he is not the right instructor for you.

I know a guy who has been seeing the same pro for over 3 years, and his handicap has not improved a single stroke.  He still shoots around 100.  I often wonder why he still goes to him but he seems convinced the guy knows what he's doing because he's "the pro".

My feeling (probably heresy on this board) is that lessons are a little bit overrated as a general rule.  There is so much good info in books, online, youtube, etc... that it is easy to find an online instructional style you like and work with that.

For example if you practice the grip just as Hogan prescribes in Five Lessons until you have it down pat, do you need to pay a pro to show you how to grip the club?  You can get Hogan's book for 99 cents used on Amazon, how much is a typical golf lesson?

[iacas]

These kinds of things are difficult for me to comment on because if I say anything negative it will often be taken the wrong way. But here goes…

We're successful with our students because most people get better quickly, and most people get better quickly because we prioritize properly.

I've almost never seen "tempo" and "alignment" be the #1 priority, especially for a higher handicapper.

Jeremie, answer this for me if you could: which of the 5 Simple Keys® did he work on in your lesson? Because all good full swing lessons tend to work on one of those things, as they're the true commonalities of the game's best players.