On Modern Instruction, "Feels" vs. Mechanics, and a Grab Bag of Related Topics

[iacas]

Every now and then, someone comes onto the forum with a grand idea about how "natural" the golf swing should be, about how "modern instruction is too technical," and about how they, despite rarely having broken 90 and having taken a few lessons and having seen a few YouTube videos, have the solution for what ails all golfers across the land.

In this topic, I'd like to quickly tackle a few of the arguments that are commonly lobbed out there by these types of people. These comments are often made as if they're self evident, and obvious, when in reality they're just based on a hunch and a tiny dash of personal experiences. These comments are also often made by someone who has had limited success in the game, in part because — I believe — that the work it takes to get down to a low single digit handicap, for example, tends to make one very aware of just what is actually required.

Note: I'm one of the first guys to tell you that I think most instructors aren't very good. And I have reason to dislike those guys more than most, because they actually make it more difficult for me to do well in my instruction business. If the perception is that instruction is bad (because it is), then that de-motivates people to seek out good instruction. It's a bit of a sinking tide lowers all ships sort of deal. What's the reputation of used car salesmen? Poor, right? I imagine nobody hates that reputation more than the good used car salesmen out there, as they have to work harder to overcome their perception of their peers as well as the normal things that come up in selling a car.

In no particular order, then, here are some pins and my short (for me) responses knocking them down.

Golfers Should be Taught the Basics and then Left Alone to Do What is Natural

There's nothing natural about the golf swing. It's not even a move we've developed via evolution as a necessary hunting/gathering/whatever type move, like throwing or hitting something might be. Fewer than 20% of golfers ever get instruction, so most of what you see on the golf course is people trying to do what is "natural" to them. How's that working out for them? Not very well - most people's "natural" golf swing is a train wreck, and the reason why they can't break 100 very often.

As humans, I'm not going to argue that we don't have some sort of natural hand-eye coordination. We do, to varying degrees. But golf is a whole new world of precision and speed with very little margin of error. So, yes, with a little practice the average human can get pretty good at making contact with a ball nearly every time they swing a club… but that motion, what they come up with "naturally," will often not be very good at all for playing golf.

No Other Sport is as Technical as Golf Instruction

Two quick things to say to this:

• Other sports are easier. I played soccer for a long time, and a bit of hockey. Skating isn't all that complex. Even puck-handling and shooting isn't all that complex. You can say things like "you roll your wrists like this, drag the puck like this, and then flick like this" or whatever, and that's - at most levels - about as complex and difficult as it gets. Golf is much more difficult than virtually any other sport - nearly every muscle in your body is involved in the thing, we have to hit shots accurately with the longest implements swung about as fast as anything else, our margin of error is ridiculously small (a putt from 3' with dead weight misses the hole entirely if it's not within 4° of accurate… and that's a three footer… have the wrong clubface angle on a driver by 3° and, hooo boy!). Anyway… golf is freaking difficult.
• Other sports, at the higher levels, are also incredibly technical, making the statement above in red a lie. Pitching coaches have all sorts of video and 3D motion capture devices. They analyze all kinds of things. Do we do this in Little League? They often aren't all that "technical" at the early stages, but things can ramp up for the better players. Some pitching camps and clinics will expose younger kids to this stuff. Every sport has things to gain from using science and technology, and the higher level you get.

Other sports are incredibly technical. If you consider Formula 1 or NASCAR a sport, those sports are incredibly technical.

Everyone is a Feel Player and Modern Instruction is Too Technical

I agree that everyone is a feel player, and that giving a player too much technical "stuff" is bad, but that's inherent in how I stated it: "too much." Nobody would argue that giving the student "just the right amount" of technical "stuff" is bad, because again it's inherent in how I wrote it: "just the right amount."

Some take this even further, and say things like "any technical information is too much," as if telling someone some basic technical thing is going to short circuit their brains and lead them to a complete inability to function.

The truth is, mechanics are how you hit the golf ball. Someone who has the clubhead 18" outside their hands at A6 DL has bad mechanics, and those need to improve for them to be a better golfer. I see my job as an instructor to focus the student on the mechanics they need to improve (their "priority piece"), and then I use feels to get them to change those mechanics. The hypothetical student swinging across the ball here would understand that we generally want the clubhead somewhere inline with the hands at A6 DL, but feels are how we'd get there. Feels, drills (drills are just motions or exercises that help encourage the new mechanics to feel more normal and repeatable at higher and higher speeds), and other tools are what allow the students to change the thing, and if they understand the basic mechanics, they'll have a better chance of continuing to practice on their own properly. When students leave my lesson, they should understand the hows, whats, whens, and whys of their lesson: what the priority piece is, why it's important, when it occurs in the swing, and how to go about improving it. But the last thing is almost always feels and drills to enhance/encourage those feels.

If the Instructor Talks about Mechanics, the Player Will Only Think About Mechanics

This one comes about because sometimes people  don't give enough credit to other people.

If I tell a student "Okay, from the top what you're going to see is your hands shifting out, the club shaft steepening, and kicking out to here at A6 where it's 18 inches outside of your hands. This is why your good shots are big pulls and your bad shots are slices and wipey cuts" that doesn't mean the student is going to be thinking about "okay, my hands need to do such and such, my shaft needs to do this and that, and at this point, I want to have the clubhead and my hands at this point in space…"

They might think that if you stopped the lesson there, but that's literally ten seconds of a lesson, and the next thirty plus minutes is often you working with the student to find the feelings, drills, etc. that help them improve those mechanics. If the student feels like his hands travel down toward his right pocket from the top of the backswing to fix the issue, then that is what the student leaves with, as well as an understanding of the what, when, why, and how…

My students aren't thinking about mechanics. They know the mechanical change we're trying to make, yes. But I give people the credit they deserve: they can understand what mechanical change we're trying to make, and even why, while still being able to process, understand, and remember HOW they should go about making that change.

Instructors who Draw Lines on Video Only Care about Positions, but the Golf Swing is a Dynamic Moving Thing

High speed video is like having super-human vision. I say that a lot, because it's true. I wrote a lot more about this one here, but in short… the "positions" in the golf swing are merely "checkpoints" through which we pass through while making a dynamic motion.

So that golfer with the clubhead 18" outside his hands at A6 DL that I've used a few times… on camera, he wants to start seeing the clubhead lining up closer to the hands. But he can't get there just by kind of posing it there, he has to get there dynamically, by finding the feeling that lets the clubhead pass through that "checkpoint" dynamically.

At the end of the day, too, the camera often becomes more for the student than the instructor. The student can see that "wow, I did it!" They can try a feeling and see what happened in reality. They can experiment with how much of a feeling is needed to get something to pass through the "checkpoint." And they can use the photos the instructor makes and the notes they write down for them to continue guiding them as they practice.

An Instructor with Lots of Gadgets is Obviously Too Technical

Gadgets — launch monitors, high-speed video, pressure plates, SAM PuttLab, FocusBand, training aids, GEARS, etc. K-Vest… etc. — are tools. The good golf instructors I know have a lot of tools at their disposal. Just because they have every tool available to them doesn't mean they use them in every lesson.

High-Speed video, for example, is like super-human vision. The golf swing happens too fast to see little pieces, and yet given the margins of error we have in the golf swing, we sometimes need to see those little pieces.

And… I don't believe for one second that some of the famous instructors that pre-dated technological advances would have continued to teach the way they taught before. Ben Hogan would have been one of the first people to buy a FlightScope or Trackman, I think. The old instructors would have loved using high-speed video. Technology would have expanded their tool box, and they'd be foolish not to give themselves more options.

As the saying goes, when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But when you have a full toolbox, you can fix all kinds of things, even if you don't use every tool in your toolbox on every job.

Golf Instruction is One Size Fits All and Does Not Adapt to the Student / Golf Instructors Have Only One Method and Everyone Fits that Model

I've heard some people say that some golf instructors teach one thing to everyone.

I think every instructor tends to have things they prefer, or like, but the best instructors are incredibly flexible. For example, I "prefer" something closer to a one-plane swing… but I have a number of students with Justin Thomas style backswings, very high hands, very two-plane-swing type motions. My only real constraints are working within the 5 Simple Keys®, and I'm always working toward improving one of those in the full swing.

My instruction, and the instruction of good instructors I know, is highly personalized, and that doesn't just mean what they're actually told to do and fix and change in their golf swing.

Some students aren't going to visit the range very much, so they're given lessons which focus on things they can do at home for 5-10 minutes per day. Vice versa for someone who I see 3-5x a week hitting balls 20 feet from me at Golf Evolution - they might get more drills you can do while hitting balls.

Some students are able to "buy in" more if they understand some of the little details of what they're doing. Other people just have complete faith in you and are confused by or don't want to hear anything except what they're supposed to be doing. They don't even want to know why; your word is good enough.

Some students learn by observing. Some like external cues, others internal more. Some like auditory assistance. People learn differently, and while you won't always get this perfect, good instructors try to notice those things and tailor everything they do and say to fit that person's mentality.

Heck, one of my students loves to shoot the breeze, and get his little priority piece in about ten minutes, hit balls for five more minutes, and then shoot the breeze for a bit more. Then he goes off and works on what he was given, occasionally sends me a text with a follow-up question. He was a 22 three years ago. He's a 4 now.

Getting to know your golfer, your student, is important, and while poor golf instruction might be one size fits all, good instruction is not.

Golf Instructors Tear Down Your Swing before Building it Back Up Again

This almost never happens, and when it does, odds are high that the instructor is horrible, lazy, or at best unimaginative.

I've never actually heard a golf instructor say this to a student, and I've sure as heck never said it to a student. Golfers come capable of breaking 100, or 90, or 80… or whatever. They come with skills. What good instructors do is correct the priority piece at the moment, leaving everything else the golfer is doing well already alone. Oftentimes, fixing one thing improves several other things, too.

I had a mother of a golfer — a girl, not a great swing, but she can sometimes shoot in the 80s, and other times barely breaks 100 — tell me that she didn't want to get instruction for her daughter because "she has a unique way of doing it and she doesn't have time to start over from the ground up and rebuild her swing as she's already a sophomore." Uhhhh… right. So just because the perception is out there, and because a few instructors might actually take this approach (e gads!), it doesn't mean it's valid or widely done.

Let me put it another way… an instructor who wants to "rebuild" is telling you that they're incapable of working with the skills that you have now, and that he is only capable of teaching you how to play golf if you swing one way the entire time. He's saying that he's incapable of finding and fixing a priority piece while using the skills you already have. It's an utterly ridiculous way to approach instruction.

The cynic in me thinks that anyone who says this is basically trying to lock you up for a bunch of lessons. After all, you can't "rebuild a swing from the ground up" in only two or three lessons.

Comparing Someone to a PGA Tour Player is Pointless Because Golfers Aren't Built Like PGA Tour Players

Golfers are built like PGA Tour players. Like PGA Tour players, they have two arms, two legs, a head, fingers, hips, and all sorts of body parts in common. They're also using similar tools — clubs, balls, etc. — and trying to perform a very similar task.

Instructors often use a PGA Tour player to show something being done correctly. For example, if someone doesn't transfer their weight/pressure to their front foot, I might show them a PGA Tour player doing this, so that the person a) understands that it can be done, b) starts to realize that it probably should be done, and c) has a glimpse into how it's done or what it looks like. Then, I work with that student on feels that produce better mechanics - squishing a foam ball under their lead foot, bumping the fridge door closed from the top of the backswing, letting the hips coast downhill, etc.

Average golfers may not be able to swing like a PGA Tour player, but they can certainly improve at one of the 5 Simple Keys®, the commonalities found in all great players, and comparing a golfer to a PGA Tour player can often be illuminating for the student. Plus, as the student begins to have success improving her mechanics, she'll often be thrilled to see you comparing her swing to a successful golfer and happy to see that, at least in the piece you're working on, she "looks like an LPGA Tour player" (or whomever).

No, we don't show an 85-year-old guy the golf swing of Justin Thomas and say "we want you to swing like that" and leave it at that. But if JT does some small piece that the golfer in front of you can do, the comparison may be perfectly valid.

I Saw a Video Online and it was Bad, So Lessons are Bad

Videos online are often NOT lessons. Even videos of private lessons are often not the same as a true private lesson, because the instructor is often talking to the audience behind the camera as well as the student in front of him.

Online lessons often focus more on mechanics than "feels," but that's almost bound to happen when you do not have a student right there in front of you. Videos try to give generalized instruction, and because everyone's feels may vary, they almost have to focus on the mechanics, trusting players to do the mechanics themselves and to find their own feels.

Outside of saying "students often tell me they feel like X, Y, or Z when they do this move," videos can't really get into feels much, because two people given the same feels might produce very, very different mechanics, and both could be "wrong," but they'd feel like they did what you asked (and they're being honest, because they did the "feel" they were told to feel) and consider the video and the instructor in it to have failed.

If You're Not Hitting it Better at the End of the Lesson, It's a Bad Lesson

If this one said "you should know how to hit the ball better at the end of the lesson," then cool. But no, not every golfer is going to be hitting the ball better at the end of every lesson.

You want to know a sure-fire way to hit the ball better at the end of a lesson? Do nothing. Just have your student hit 7-irons for 35 minutes or so. By gosh, they'll get in a bit of a groove and be hitting the ball better at the end — hey, why wouldn't they, they've been hitting a 7-iron for 35 minutes straight — than they were at the beginning.

That's not a lesson.

There are a ton of lessons where the student will need to work on something for a few days, weeks, even months after the lesson. They may be slightly worse for a time, and then as they begin to get better and better at the new skill, meet and then surpass their previous performance level. Golf is hard®, and changes take time to incorporate at full speed.

If you insist on hitting the ball better at the end of the lesson, on being literally a better golfer at the end of a lesson, right at that moment… then you're likely only looking for band-aid type lessons. Quick fixes. The thing is, those types of lessons often don't last. There are occasions when they do, but true, lasting changes often take time. 

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Changelog:

• Version 1.0 - 2018-12-18 - Initial Draft.
• Version 1.0.1 - 2018-12-27 - Added an image so that embedding this topic elsewhere will use that image.

I plan for this to be a living, breathing document of sorts, and I'll add things here and there, revise the wording, etc. as time goes on. Changes for more than grammar/spelling/clarification I will try to note in the changelog.

[Vinsk]

Excellent post Erik. This could even be posted in the ‘info’ tab. So many people need to read this. 

[boogielicious]

This is why I came to The Sand Trap in the first place. I was looking for good instruction. I was intrigued by the good information here. Then I went to a clinic with Erik and Dave Wedzik and they covered their approach in person. They answered for me the most important question, "why". As an engineer, that is what I needed.

Thanks for posting @iacas.

[colin007]

¿Quién es Jordan Thomas?

[iacas]

59 minutes ago, colin007 said:

¿Quién es Jordan Thomas?

Duh. 😄

I got it right the second time. 🙂 Thanks.

[Vinsk]

I think, however it could be done, that this post or 'essay' if you will should be easily available for anyone who's thinking of or is about to take lessons. Would be such a great read for those in such a situation.

[Wanzo]

A lot of good thoughts and information here. Where I have failed in regards to this is I want it to be true that all getting better takes is using my natural swing and not thinking.  So as I’ve worked on my swing the past few years I want to be at the unconscious stage before I’m ready for it.  I will stick with “technical” (good) instruction for a time and give up since I think I’m not seeing much progress in my actual scores so think i must be making this too hard and I need to just keep things simple.  My hope for this year is to stick to the process of improving and using good/technical instruction. I don’t think I will regret doing that.  I do think I could regret just swinging “naturally”.  Even if both end up with the same result which I don’t think will happen. 

[iacas]

4 hours ago, Wanzo said:

A lot of good thoughts and information here. Where I have failed in regards to this is I want it to be true that all getting better takes is using my natural swing and not thinking.  So as I’ve worked on my swing the past few years I want to be at the unconscious stage before I’m ready for it.  I will stick with “technical” (good) instruction for a time and give up since I think I’m not seeing much progress in my actual scores so think i must be making this too hard and I need to just keep things simple.  My hope for this year is to stick to the process of improving and using good/technical instruction. I don’t think I will regret doing that.  I do think I could regret just swinging “naturally”.  Even if both end up with the same result which I don’t think will happen. 

I agree.

Related topic: golfers think that PGA Tour players who are playing their best are "swinging naturally." And sometimes, they are swinging without too much of a thought. Sometimes, a PGA Tour player pictures the shot and then hits the shot. But that ignores two big things:

• The massive amounts of work they've put in before that point (and the work they'll continue to put in after that point).
• The other 99% of their rounds where they have something like 2.78 swing thoughts, or whatever the number was (it was between 2 and 3, and closer to 3) published recently.

You put in the work to make the swing better, to build up that habit, but it doesn't mean quite the same thing as "natural." And… particularly when you're a beginner or a higher handicapper, your "natural" swing is a horrible swing (not talking about you @Wanzo).

[David in FL]

As the very epitome of an untrained, natural swinger, I agree completely.  

Whatever small improvements I have made over the years have been a result of self-implementing small changes based on learning more about some technical aspect of the swing.  I have no doubt at all, that I coulda/woulda/shoulda been significantly better at this silly game had I had a good instructor, and the willingness to actually work with him toward understanding and implementing changes based on solid, technical knowledge, rather than strictly relying on pure, oft times misapplied athleticism.

 

[Buckeyebowman]

On 12/27/2018 at 10:21 PM, iacas said:

I agree.

Related topic: golfers think that PGA Tour players who are playing their best are "swinging naturally." And sometimes, they are swinging without too much of a thought. Sometimes, a PGA Tour player pictures the shot and then hits the shot. But that ignores two big things:

• The massive amounts of work they've put in before that point (and the work they'll continue to put in after that point).
• The other 99% of their rounds where they have something like 2.78 swing thoughts, or whatever the number was (it was between 2 and 3, and closer to 3) published recently.

You put in the work to make the swing better, to build up that habit, but it doesn't mean quite the same thing as "natural." And… particularly when you're a beginner or a higher handicapper, your "natural" swing is a horrible swing (not talking about you @Wanzo).

I agree. I see the TV broadcasts and all the palaver that goes on between a player and his/her caddie before a shot. In my present state, or any state of being prior to this, I would be absolutely paralyzed trying to play a stroke with that much stuff in my head! These people are so far inside the game that the vast majority of us have no idea! 

[millsan1]

I would like to add a point.  I am a big believer in instruction and training in all aspects of my life, golf included.

 

What many fail to realize is that instruction gives you the tools to practice.  Practice, utilizing the instruction, is what improves your skills.

[colin007]

11 minutes ago, millsan1 said:

I would like to add a point.  I am a big believer in instruction and training in all aspects of my life, golf included.

 

What many fail to realize is that instruction gives you the tools to practice.  Practice, utilizing the instruction, is what improves your skills.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Pounding range balls is NOT practice (not calling you out bro). 

[Puttin4Dough]

Golf instructors are like car salesman....now that I think folks might agree with, but it's not because they're bad instructors in many cases because golf is a focused, individual, personal achievement game.  A bad shot is a reflection upon one's ability.  Guys tend to be more egotistical.  They want to show others they can "learn on their own" like they're "beating the odds".  Similar to why guys will drive all around town vs. asking for directions.  In golf, they "drive all around town" looking for tips and fixes vs. "asking for directions" from an instructor'.

Aside from golf, why do people set-out to play piano or guitar, then after a short time they quit?  It's because they think they can learn without mastering the basics such as playing scales with proper fingering.  But they're off to trying to tackle Beethoven's 5th Symphony before they can piece together Mary Had a Little Lamb.  

The problem in golf, like piano, is people develop and ingrain their own version of technique that is often bad to the core.  Unwinding bad habits in piano is 100X harder than learning the right way from the start.  In their minds what they're doing is "right" because it's become habitual / comfortable, and at some point they might string together two measures of a difficult song, or in golf, hit a great shot, which only serves to reinforce bad technique.. 

So IMO I don't bother teaching around bad fundamentals.  I tell the person they need to forget everything and start over....much like learning the scales in piano using proper technique.  A lot of instructors are criticized for a student's lack of advancement because they are hesitant to start folks from square one because that would essentially erase years of "hard work" for the guy who thinks shooting much lower is "just around the corner".  

[iacas]

4 hours ago, Puttin4Dough said:

Golf instructors are like car salesman....

And then a paragraph in which you fail entirely to explain why "golf instructors are like car salesmen."

4 hours ago, Puttin4Dough said:

So IMO I don't bother teaching around bad fundamentals. I tell the person they need to forget everything and start over....much like learning the scales in piano using proper technique.

Utterly ridiculous, as I wrote above.

Talk about a "used car salesman" type of approach.

[Puttin4Dough]

59 minutes ago, iacas said:

And then a paragraph in which you fail entirely to explain why "golf instructors are like car salesmen."

Utterly ridiculous, as I wrote above.

Talk about a "used car salesman" type of approach.

You made the inference to car salesman....not me.  Do you read what you write?  It's like dealing with someone with acute ADD.  I don't even know where to begin.  If you allow students with lousy swings to build upon a false premise, then that's your deal, and why folks dislike instructors.  It's by far the worst way to teach anything.  Good gawd, you ran another thread about "non conning yourself" but then apparently you con your students.  I can't keep up with your lack of logic.

You have a handful of sycophants who agree with anything you write...but you are one guy in Erie PA who has never played on tour, your team members can barely win a city championship, but you want everyone to believe you're the guru of golf.  It's just utterly ridiculous.

[Vinsk]

11 minutes ago, Puttin4Dough said:

You made the inference to car salesman....not me.  Do you read what you write?  It's like dealing with someone with acute ADD.  I don't even know where to begin.  If you allow students with lousy swings to build upon a false premise, then that's your deal, and why folks dislike instructors.  It's by far the worst way to teach anything.  Good gawd, you ran another thread about "non conning yourself" but then apparently you con your students.  I can't keep up with your lack of logic.

You have a handful of sycophants who agree with anything you write...but you are one guy in Erie PA who has never played on tour, your team members can barely win a city championship, but you want everyone to believe you're the guru of golf.  It's just utterly ridiculous.

LOL! Wow. You’re ridiculous. That’s really about all I can say to that post. Absolutely zero respect for ‘ this one guy’ who spends his life helping others play this game, offers free advice, wrote a book about golf and points to what many have never understood, owns a website dedicated to golf, provides countless hours of data and research to back all his statements on instruction, always willing to discuss his teachings and show why he supports them with video, readings, data and experiments.  

You come on here with your ideas and opinions backed by....your own ideas and opinion and yours your alone experience. 

I think I’ll stick with that ‘one guy in Erie, PA.’

[phillyk]

40 minutes ago, Puttin4Dough said:

 I don't even know where to begin.  If you allow students with lousy swings to build upon a false premise, then that's your deal, and why folks dislike instructors.  It's by far the worst way to teach anything.  Good gawd, you ran another thread about "non conning yourself" but then apparently you con your students.  I can't keep up with your lack of logic.

You have a handful of sycophants who agree with anything you write...but you are one guy in Erie PA who has never played on tour, your team members can barely win a city championship, but you want everyone to believe you're the guru of golf.  It's just utterly ridiculous.

It isn't just one guy.  Nobody in the top 500 instructors in the world would choose to start somebody over after a bad swing, that's just ludicrous.  Even the worst swings have something unique and good about them that we can build on. 

[JetFan1983]

1 hour ago, Puttin4Dough said:

You made the inference to car salesman....not me.  Do you read what you write?  It's like dealing with someone with acute ADD.  I don't even know where to begin.  If you allow students with lousy swings to build upon a false premise, then that's your deal, and why folks dislike instructors.  It's by far the worst way to teach anything.  Good gawd, you ran another thread about "non conning yourself" but then apparently you con your students.  I can't keep up with your lack of logic.

You have a handful of sycophants who agree with anything you write...but you are one guy in Erie PA who has never played on tour, your team members can barely win a city championship, but you want everyone to believe you're the guru of golf.  It's just utterly ridiculous.