Does Modern Golf Instruction Always Help?

[Don Golfo]

Reading an interesting golf book by a guy called Brian Sparks.  He is a reasonably well known PGA qualified instructor in the U.K. and the inventor of the “Easiest Swing” philosophy. He stresses very few fundamentals and instead focuses on Mental aspects, Turning the body properly, Weight Shift, Rhythm, Balance, Coordination and what he refers to as Souplesse (Flexibility and suppleness as far as I can tell).  His view is that by focusing on and maintaining relaxed, rhythmical movements the golfer will naturally start to build a repetitive swing.  In a lot of ways what he espouses is quite similar to the Orange Whip training regime.  This got me to think about a lot of the golf instruction I’ve experienced in the past.  Some of it has been very helpful - usually when the instructor has focused on a few fundamentals and has analysed my ball flight and made appropriate corrections. Some of it has been very challenging and frankly a bit of a waste of time - usually this has involved video analysis, with lots of lines being drawn on still shots and angles being dissected all combined with long winded technical explanations and comparisons to tour players.  The latter type of instruction has caused me to think a lot about the position of my body and how the body should move.   I believe this has taken away my natural ability to hit the ball and makes me think in a way that is too technical.  The golf instruction industry seems to mostly favour the technical approach.  Perhaps that’s because it’s more methodical and consistent and maybe easier for the instructor to deliver. 

Another proponent of simplified instruction was the legendary John Jacobs (Also known as Dr Golf). He was an early pioneer of golf schools in Europe and the USA and mentored many of today’s leading instructors such as Hank Haney I believe. He limited technical aspects mainly to grip, posture, how the ball is addressed and asked students to simply turn and lift the golf club simultaneously on the back swing and the drop the club and turn back towards the target on the downswing. 

Lots of technical thoughts fog the mind and lead to rigidity in my opinion. Nobody starts training cricketers, tennis players or footballers (soccer) by filling their heads with technical mumbo jumbo; at least not in the beginning. The focus is on a few fundamentals (gripping the bat, set up and easy strategy) with lots of encouragement to let natural talent flow. In these sports people quickly start to enjoy the experience of playing as the process is much more natural. They progress quickly and reach their potential within a few years. 

We have natural god given talent to hit the ball. Why do so many instructors negatively interfere with that?

 

[boogielicious]

2 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

Reading an interesting golf book by a guy called Brian Sparks.  He is a reasonably well known PGA qualified instructor in the U.K. and the inventor of the “Easiest Swing” philosophy. He stresses very few fundamentals and instead focuses on Mental aspects, Turning the body properly, Weight Shift, Rhythm, Balance, Coordination and what he refers to as Souplesse (Flexibility and suppleness as far as I can tell).  His view is that by focusing on and maintaining relaxed, rhythmical movements the golfer will naturally start to build a repetitive swing.  In a lot of ways what he espouses is quite similar to the Orange Whip training regime.  This got me to think about a lot of the golf instruction I’ve experienced in the past.  Some of it has been very helpful - usually when the instructor has focused on a few fundamentals and has analysed my ball flight and made appropriate corrections. Some of it has been very challenging and frankly a bit of a waste of time - usually this has involved video analysis, with lots of lines being drawn on still shots and angles being dissected all combined with long winded technical explanations and comparisons to tour players.  The latter type of instruction has caused me to think a lot about the position of my body and how the body should move.   I believe this has taken away my natural ability to hit the ball and makes me think in a way that is too technical.  The golf instruction industry seems to mostly favour the technical approach.  Perhaps that’s because it’s more methodical and consistent and maybe easier for the instructor to deliver. 

Another proponent of simplified instruction was the legendary John Jacobs (Also known as Dr Golf). He was an early pioneer of golf schools in Europe and the USA and mentored many of today’s leading instructors such as Hank Haney I believe. He limited technical aspects mainly to grip, posture, how the ball is addressed and asked students to simply turn and lift the golf club simultaneously on the back swing and the drop the club and turn back towards the target on the downswing. 

Lots of technical thoughts fog the mind and lead to rigidity in my opinion. Nobody starts training cricketers, tennis players or footballers (soccer) by filling their heads with technical mumbo jumbo; at least not in the beginning. The focus is on a few fundamentals (gripping the bat, set up and easy strategy) with lots of encouragement to let natural talent flow. In these sports people quickly start to enjoy the experience of playing as the process is much more natural. They progress quickly and reach their potential within a few years. 

We have natural god given talent to hit the ball. Why do so many instructors negatively interfere with that?

 

Swinging a golf club is not a natural motion for humans. Through our evolution we learned to run and throw for hunting and our bodies adapted to that. But we never took a stick and hit a rock a few yards to kill prey. It doesn't even equate to fishing or cracking a whip very much. So it is not a naturally evolved motion for our bodies. It is a learned physical skill.

I agree there is a lot of bad instruction out there and sometimes there is also information overload. But a good instructor will identify what you need to work on and have you focus on one thing at a time.

I will also say that many golfers who take instruction are lousy students too. They want instant improvement and give up working on the changes. Some changes can take months to fix, but they don't have the patience. I'm guilty of early on eschewing my priority piece. But after a while, I went back and revisit it and then it dawned on my why it was important. Once I got to being a good student and patient, the changes worked. 

[David in FL]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

 

I agree there is a lot of bad instruction out there and sometimes there is also information overload. But a good instructor will identify what you need to work on and have you focus on one thing at a time.

I will also say that many golfers who take instruction are lousy students too. They want instant improvement and give up working on the changes. Some changes can take months to fix, but they don't have the patience. I'm guilty of early on eschewing my priority piece. But after a while, I went back and revisit it and then it dawned on my why it was important. Once I got to being a good student and patient, the changes worked. 

^^^^  This ^^^^

Good instruction will help good students.  Both are necessary for success.

[Piz]

No type of instruction always helps.  

[JetFan1983]

 

2 hours ago, boogielicious said:

We never took a stick and hit a rock a few yards to kill prey.

Actually, paleoanthropologists recently discovered cave drawings in Africa depicting this. It's why there are no more woolly mammoths. 

34 minutes ago, David in FL said:

^^^^  This ^^^^

Good instruction will help good students.  Both are necessary for success.

Yea.

Plus, a good instructor simply pinpoints root causes and knows how to explain them in a way that the client can best understand them. For some, that's done through video with lines drawn and stuff. For others, it's just a simple sentence or two. The net result is the same though: the student gets better. 

 

Edited December 15, 2018 by JetFan1983
spelling

[DaveP043]

16 minutes ago, Piz said:

No type of instruction always helps.  

This is right, no single specific style of instruction works with every student.  That includes the older styles of instruction that focus on feeling a natural turn back and turn through.  What feels natural to you might feel totally unnatural to me, and vice-versa.  For many students, what feels natural is totally wrong, so the instructor has to find ways to help them make a weird-feeling movement consistently.  Talking of old-school instruction, and natural feelings, Ben Hogan suggested that we should take whatever feels natural and do the exact opposite.

I think its important to remember that until pretty recently, instructors didn't have the tools to understand exactly what happens in good golf swings.  In many cases. what they believed was happening, and what they wanted a player to try to do, was significantly different from what the player actually needed to do.  

In my opinion, the best instructors can find a way to help most (not all) students.  Some of us will learn better with the videos and lines and details, while others will learn better with simple feelings.  Video is a great tool to diagnose the root cause of an issue, and to check progress in making specific changes, but  you can't watch your own video as you're making a real swing.   That's the art of teaching, to be able to explain to each student how to make the required changes, through drills or feels or exaggerated motions or whatever else that might work. 

[Don Golfo]

4 hours ago, boogielicious said:

Swinging a golf club is not a natural motion for humans.

Indeed

4 hours ago, boogielicious said:

agree there is a lot of bad instruction out there and sometimes there is also information overload. But a good instructor will identify what you need to work on and have you focus on one thing at a time.

Often they don’t? My experience is that many tend to follow some form of deeply ingrained dogma regardless of what they can see in an individual student. 

[Patch]

Golf instruction, modern or otherwise will not always help. It's a partnership between the instructor, and the student. As in other aspects of life, some partnerships work out positive for both partners, while other partnerships will turn into a cluster.........mess between the two.

There are no guarantees in golf instruction as I see it. Not today, not yesterday, and not tomorrow.  

I had a great instructor way back when, who was also a club fitter, and maker. I was able to get to single digits under his instruction.

He too stressed a natural grip, and swing, after teaching the basics. His biggest deal was a proper impact position.

After teaching the basics, the impact position was what he thought was the most important part of the golf swing. He used what the student had, and showed the student how to use what he had, to get to a good, usable impact position. An impact position that sent the ball the student's targeted, landing area......most of the time. I doubt seriously if he ever taught the golf swing the same way to every student he worked with. Different students required diffent instruction in his mind. 

Two of the biggest problems I see in today's modern instruction for the amateur golfer is that the student doesn't realise that golf instruction is an on going agreement to learn. One, or two lessons just won't do it if they want to maximize their own talent. Plus, after only one, or two lessons neither the student, or the instructor know if they were going to accomplish a positive partnership. 

The other problem is the instructors who, when a student fails to learn what they are teaching, blames the student. That is just a bad teacher.

[Don Golfo]

4 hours ago, boogielicious said:

I will also say that many golfers who take instruction are lousy students too. They want instant improvement and give up working on the changes.

Probably. However, as the legendary John Jacobs used to say “the only mark of a successful lesson is did it make the student better at the end of it?”  I am a strong advocate of this sentiment. I pay an instructor to identify a problem and help me understand it and apply the necessary correction to improve it.  I don’t think a lesson that involves a lot of technical mumbo jumbo and finishes with a promise that things will get better eventually if only you’ll focus on this new move and hit 20,000 balls. That’s completely unacceptable.

2 hours ago, David in FL said:

Good instruction will help good students.  Both are necessary for success.

Students need to be receptive and apply themselves, but good instruction should result in quick improvement.

[Don Golfo]

3 hours ago, Piz said:

No type of instruction always helps.  

Then it’s terrible instruction and the instructor needs to try to do something else.

[Don Golfo]

2 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

I think its important to remember that until pretty recently, instructors didn't have the tools to understand exactly what happens in good golf swings.  In many cases. what they believed was happening, and what they wanted a player to try to do, was significantly different from what the player actually needed to do.  

 

Technology has its place, but it can be part of the problem too as it focuses a lot on technical analysis of the swing.  I think well trained instructors can quite quickly diagnose faults without video or launch monitors. The ball flight provides quite a lot of information about what happened when the student hit the ball? Video should be more illustrative and a way of helping the student understand their particular fault?

[Patch]

5 minutes ago, Don Golfo said:

Then it’s terrible instruction and the instructor needs to try to do something else.

No, the instructor might be correct, but the student might be incapable of wrapping their brain around the instruction. 

In that case, their are two options. The student finds the right instructor, that they can mesh with. Or, the instructor changes their own instruction to fit the student's comprehension level, which is not likely to happen in this modern era of instruction. 

Actually there are three possible options. That both the instructor, and the student have no clue what so ever about the golf swing , and should take up another profession or game. 

 

[Don Golfo]

1 hour ago, Patch said:

He used what the student had, and showed the student how to use what he had, to get to a good, usable impact position

That to me that is great instruction.

Edited December 15, 2018 by Don Golfo

[ncates00]

5 minutes ago, Don Golfo said:

Technology has its place, but it can be part of the problem too as it focuses a lot on technical analysis of the swing.  I think well trained instructors can quite quickly diagnose faults without video or launch monitors. The ball flight provides quite a lot of information about what happened when the student hit the ball? Video should be more illustrative and a way of helping the student understand their particular fault?

Maybe. But launch monitors provide the valuable and measurable data as a way to gauge progress other than seeing the actual flight. I don’t like the technical teaching method either. I just swing the clubhead and feel the clubhead weight throughout the swing. But I use my gc2 to measure whether my feelings are working. I know my ball speeds, launch angles, spins, etc for every club. I don’t use the machine to teach myself. I use the machine as a way of “looking in the back of the textbook to check my answers” so to speak. 

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, Don Golfo said:

Often they don’t? My experience is that many tend to follow some form of deeply ingrained dogma regardless of what they can see in an individual student. 

Any instructor that advocates a single method of swing doesn't fit my definition of a "good" instructor.

6 minutes ago, Don Golfo said:

Technology has its place, but it can be part of the problem too as it focuses a lot on technical analysis of the swing.  I think well trained instructors can quite quickly diagnose faults without video or launch monitors. The ball flight provides quite a lot of information about what happened when the student hit the ball? Video should be more illustrative and a way of helping the student understand their particular fault?

As I said, different styles of instruction work for different players.  Some actually benefit from detailed understand of what they're doing, and what they need to change.  Others will benefit more from simple feels to change something, without really caring about the details.  Real instructors may disagree, but I have a feeling that for better players, slo-mo video may be a big help in diagnosing small faults, where for lesser players their faults may be more obvious to the naked eye.

I can only speak for my own experience, but I liked seeing video, so I understood what I needed to change, and what I could look for in my practice sessions to verify that I was going in the right direction.  But the advice boiled down to a couple of simple feels to achieve the appropriate change.

[Piz]

32 minutes ago, Don Golfo said:

Then it’s terrible instruction and the instructor needs to try to do something else.

That isn't what I meant to convey.  

[Don Golfo]

16 minutes ago, Patch said:

No, the instructor might be correct, but the student might be incapable of wrapping their brain around the instruction.

Then he or she isn’t communicating effectively and therefore it’s still terrible instruction. The money people spend on instruction is discretionary; it’s up to instructors to make sure the student gets value for money.

[iacas]

I'm going to speak as an instructor, and one who is completely confident that for the vast majority of my students, I'm doing a damn good job. I'm not insecure, but I'm also not going to say I'm perfect, either. I'm sure I could do a better job with some students.

But it's tough to say, and you never really know. A brief story.

I had a woman this past summer who was swinging WAY over the top and left. Like… more than I'd almost ever seen. So I could have gone two ways with her, and I chose what I considered "Way A" - a tougher but ultimately more "correct" way. The rest of the lesson went poorly, I thought, but she was getting the motion down better and better, so I kept going with it.

At the end, feeling as if maybe I should have gone with the "easier" but "less correct" "Way B," I told her I wanted to see her in two weeks and I'd give her a half price lesson. I told her I wanted her to keep trying to do what we'd worked on (it's still the right thing, but she was having trouble hitting the ball anywhere on the club face, the change was so big for her).

Anyway, two weeks goes by, and I meet her on the lesson tee. She is very nervous. I'm thinking "oh, man, oh no." She says "I'm so nervous. I've been doing what you said… and I'm hitting the ball so well I can't even tell you. Better than ever in my life!" I watched her hit a few shots, recorded a few, and said "wow, that's great. Let's work on your chipping or short game or putting or something, what you're doing there is awesome."

So sometimes the instructors don't even know if the lesson was "good" - sometimes in a span of 45 minutes it's impossible to suss out exactly how someone will best learn something, how someone is going to practice, etc. The woman above trusted me and was just making such a big change, she couldn't hit the ball even as poorly as she had before, but as she got even used to it over two weeks… she started hitting it great.

11 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

He stresses very few fundamentals and instead focuses on Mental aspects, Turning the body properly, Weight Shift, Rhythm, Balance, Coordination and what he refers to as Souplesse (Flexibility and suppleness as far as I can tell).

The golf swing is a physical motion. Yes, your brain "controls" everything, including your "feels," but it's a physical motion.

11 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

His view is that by focusing on and maintaining relaxed, rhythmical movements the golfer will naturally start to build a repetitive swing.

All golf swings are repetitive, and none are natural. Some people have better hand-eye coordination than others, some have more speed than others, some may have played more stick sports as a kid… whatever. But the golf swing is not at all a "natural" movement, and instructors who say that, honestly, I think they're just scamming you. Marketing to you. Conning you.

11 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

Some of it has been very helpful - usually when the instructor has focused on a few fundamentals and has analysed my ball flight and made appropriate corrections. Some of it has been very challenging and frankly a bit of a waste of time - usually this has involved video analysis, with lots of lines being drawn on still shots and angles being dissected all combined with long winded technical explanations and comparisons to tour players.

Those two things don't have to be mutually exclusive at all.

I use technology. Hell, I wrote Analyzr, video swing analysis software. I use video in nearly every lesson I give, always. I use SAM PuttLab. I use FlightScope. I use training aids, and I draw lines, and so on.

But I see my job as finding that one biggest change, the "priority piece," for that golfer to work on.

Tour players are still valid comparisons, not because you should have the same flexibility or speed as them, but because they do the 5 Simple Keys®, and can serve as a good demonstration to show you what should be different.

The high-speed video is for me at first, you bet. I can see things with high-speed video that you cannot see with the naked eye. I don't always need it, and the more I teach, the more I know what I'm going to see on the video, but it's still helpful to see the degree. It's super-human vision, after all - who would turn that down?

But after the initial analysis, and after me seeing it… the video and the lines are for the student. I produce pictures for the student with their feels, and show them how that changes their golf swing. Yes, it's in photos… but the photos remind them of what they're after, what their "priority piece" is and how to work on it.

I don't like blanket statements, either, but almost always, if you're leaving a lesson without photos or notes or something like that, I'm likely to feel you've gotten a bad lesson. A band-aid. A quick fix.

My job is to take what can be quite technical and boil it down. To know the ocean's worth of information, but to give the student (oftentimes) what amounts to a tablespoon.

Some golfers can handle a cup or a gallon. Most are good with a tablespoon.

11 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

I believe this has taken away my natural ability to hit the ball and makes me think in a way that is too technical.

Those two things don't have to go together. "Too technical" is a fault, sure, but an instructor can be "technical" himself without exposing that much "technical" stuff to the student.

And not all "line drawing" guys are technical. Everyone is a feel player, after all:

11 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

Lots of technical thoughts fog the mind and lead to rigidity in my opinion.

They fog the minds of everyone. You're not alone in that.

11 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

Nobody starts training cricketers, tennis players or footballers (soccer) by filling their heads with technical mumbo jumbo; at least not in the beginning.  

Just three quick things there…

1. Those sports are comparatively much easier than golf. They have more margin for error and are simpler overall motions.
2. Nobody has to start out training golfers by "filling their heads with technical mumbo jumbo," either. I just finished teaching 16 juniors today. In my last group, I have four girls. One is working on feeling like her left shoulder slides backward (to her right) across a shelf, the second is feeling like her hands drop down from the top of the backswing, the third is making her backswing motion feel "smoother" (the way her hips and knees work), and the fourth is trying to point the club to the left at the top of her backswing. That's it. That's their "priority piece."
3. There is a TON of technical mumbo jumbo known by high-end pitching instructors, soccer players, wide receiver coaches, hitting instructors, and so on. Despite the fact that those motions are orders of magnitude simpler with much wider margins of error than the golf swing.

You're arguing against a straw man, of sorts.

11 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

The focus is on a few fundamentals (gripping the bat, set up and easy strategy) with lots of encouragement to let natural talent flow. In these sports people quickly start to enjoy the experience of playing as the process is much more natural. They progress quickly and reach their potential within a few years.

Golf is hard.®

It's not soccer. I've played soccer at a reasonably high level (varsity as a freshman, on a traveling team through that same year, until I quit to play golf instead), and it's so, so, so much simpler.

11 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

We have natural god given talent to hit the ball. Why do so many instructors negatively interfere with that?  

1. No, we don't.
2. Most instructors are pretty bad.

3 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

Probably. However, as the legendary John Jacobs used to say “the only mark of a successful lesson is did it make the student better at the end of it?” I am a strong advocate of this sentiment.

You shouldn't be, as strict adherence to that standard will lead you to value band-aid fixes over actual golf instruction.

It depends on what you mean by "better at the end of it," but if you mean "hits better shots at the end" then I disagree on occasion. Like the woman in my story at the top - she ended up getting a great lesson, and was what she needed, and she was nearly whiffing at the end of her lesson.

Some guy who has been coming over the top for 40 years and who plays to a 12 doing that has figured out how to make that "work" to some extent. Making a lasting change that might let him become an 8 handicap might not happen inside of 45 minutes - he might need to keep working at it.

But if he got a good lesson, that golfer should know what he's working on, know why he's working on it, know how to work on it… etc. Then, honestly, it's up to the student to actually do it.

Some priority pieces take a little time and effort.

I challenge myself with every student to "change the picture" as quickly as possible. Often that means asking for some feeling to be exaggerated. Then the student can see the change, and can be excited about it. It shows them quickly that they CAN do something. Then it's up to them to actually do it. A hundred times. A thousand times. Whatever.

The golf swing isn't natural, but the habits (good or bad) that people build up are natural, and often fixing those bad habits feels very unnatural for quite awhile.

3 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

I pay an instructor to identify a problem and help me understand it and apply the necessary correction to improve it.

You might not be an actual "better golfer" at the end of that lesson, though.

3 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

I don’t think a lesson that involves a lot of technical mumbo jumbo and finishes with a promise that things will get better eventually if only you’ll focus on this new move and hit 20,000 balls. That’s completely unacceptable.

You keep adding in stuff like "technical mumbo jumbo." I know almost all the technical mumbo jumbo you could want… and some students like to know what "palmar flexion" is. Others just want to know "twist the grip" or "turn the door knob."

3 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

Students need to be receptive and apply themselves, but good instruction should result in quick improvement.

Not necessarily. Particularly for a really bad and really ingrained habit.

3 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

Then it’s terrible instruction and the instructor needs to try to do something else.

You said that in response to "No type of instruction always helps."

I took that to mean that for some, a more technical lesson can work, while others benefit from being a bit less technical. For some, a certain feeling or drill will work, but it likely won't work for everyone.

And that's true.

You're a different person than every other one of my students, @Don Golfo. The lesson that works for you, even if someone else was given your same exact golf swing and thus had the same exact problem, may not work for that student at all. I might have to explain things completely differently, or come up with a completely different drill, or whatever.

There is no one type of instruction that always helps.

And you know what else? You can give a great lesson, and if the student doesn't practice… it can all be for naught.

The student has a responsibility too. They can't expect to take a lesson and just be "fixed."

2 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

Technology has its place, but it can be part of the problem too as it focuses a lot on technical analysis of the swing.

Technology doesn't do that, no. The instructor chooses to do that.

I gave a lesson on SAM PuttLab the other day where a student had a severe inward arc on the backswing, swung the putter out way to the right on the follow-through, and left the face open (or it'd feel like a snap hook).

I could have taken that information and gone a ton of directions with it:

• Show him the graphs and charts and paths and numbers and explain what it all meant.
• Show him the picture of his putter head path and clubface at impact and explain how to fix it.
• Show him nothing, but tell him how to fix it.

And all sorts of other hybrid or subtle variations.

What I did with this student was basically the middle one - showed him the path, showed him how that was leading to a clubface too open, and then said "feel like you take it back with the face shut and on a straight line." (He didn't take it back straight, but it was much less inward). He did that and we looked at those two data points to see what had changed. Then, using the picture of his path and the face angle number as his guideposts, he messed around until he found the feelings that worked for him, within a very narrow, specific framework.

Any of the three solutions (or variations) could have worked with all sorts of different students. Some might be interested in the more technical stuff, about how if the putter is on a certain plane and if your shoulders are on this plane, and you move this way, the arc should be 15° with the face staying square to that arc but opening to the target line… and others just want the simplest of simple things.

2 hours ago, Don Golfo said:

The money people spend on instruction is discretionary; it’s up to instructors to make sure the student gets value for money.

Maybe, but not necessarily.

If the student doesn't take his notes, his pictures, what he learned during the lesson, and go practice it properly, even though he knows why, how, and what… then whose fault is that?

The student's.

I can give a great lesson that the student completely understands, that he improves at during the lesson, and see the guy in a month and if he hasn't continued to work on it, to make it a habit… he can be exactly the same as he was, with no improvement.