y goal as a teacher is to make golf fun and easy for my students.
Unfortunately, there are too many miserable golfers out there. The game is just too hard and too many golf- ers are confused. There is so much information and golfers are trying to sort through it. The Internet and magazines provide us with amazing access, which has, unfortunately, not led to better golf. As teachers, we now
know more about the golf swing than we ever have before. This should be a good thing, right? Only if the information fits your needs. This is where you can play an active and crucial role. I want you to understand how to take
a lesson. Let’s start with the basic premise that your goal is to make solid, repetitive contact and produce a predictable ball flight. In my book, that is the recipe for a good golfer.
Your role as a student is threefold: Explain your contact miss,
which is either fat or thin. Explain your shot shape. This
1 2
can be a slice, a hook, a trajectory error or some combination of the aforementioned. If these first two are not easy for
you to do, a capable instructor can determine this within the first five minutes of the lesson, so don’t stress too much. Now comes the third and most
crucial part: Anything the instructor tells you
3
Anything the instructor tells you to do must relate to fixing the quality of your contact or
correcting your shot shape error.
to do must relate to fixing the quality of your contact or correcting your shot shape error. If not, it simply does not belong in the lesson. It’s that simple. As the student, your question when you are asked to do something should be: “When I do this, how will it improve my contact and shot shape?” Asking this is not being rude; it’s simply part of the learning process. The instructor should be able to explain this to you. If not, you are in the wrong place. Here is the cool thing. Most of you
reading this article are weekend war- riors. You are not trying to rebuild your golf swing and go on tour. But you do want to be functional and have a good time. You do not need major surgery on your golf swing. You are all differ- ent, and your swings are unique to you. A capable instructor can make your swing functional. I love that commer- cial where Arnold Palmer talks about “Your swing.” It’s not Adam Scott’s or Jordan Spieth’s, it’s yours. Successful teachers will know how
any change they ask you to make will affect your contact or your shot shape. They should be able to predict this before you hit! It is comforting as a student that your expert knows where he or she is taking you. My mentor Jim Hardy has a slogan,
“Hit the next ball better.” If the next ball is not better, one of three things did not happen:
FALL 2015 /
NCGA.ORG / 49
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