Instruction

Need a new instructor? When it’s time to say goodbye

Published

11 years ago

Nov 13, 2012

It’s easy to know when you want to find a golf instructor: You can’t get rid of the duckhook with your irons, you hit every wedge fat or it’s winter and the course is closed and your wife wants you out of the house.

Or you could post on GolfWRX in the Equipment section that you have a 95 mph driver swing speed and you want a driver that will help calm down your nasty slice. At that point, you will get five responses saying that you need a swing fix, not a new driver, or that it’s the Indian, not the arrow.

When it’s time for a teacher, you’ll find lots of stuff on the web about what to look for — an experienced PGA guy or gal; someone you can afford and who works nearby so you don’t have an excuse to skip a lesson; a good reputation or strong references; someone whose instructions you can understand and with whom you’re comfortable; and someone who will work with what you’re trying to accomplish and what you will bring to the partnership in terms of learning style, time to practice, and the like.

So you don’t need me to tell you what to look for in a teacher. Instead, I’ll offer a few thoughts about something less discussed and a bit more complicated. When do you say goodbye to your instructor and move on to another one?

I started golf early in my teenage years. I gave it up when I went to college and didn’t pick up the sticks for 25 years. Then I started up again without lessons and achieved mediocre to crappy results, until I reached a point where my swing looked like a circus act without a ringleader. I had all sorts of moving parts, noneof them coordinated, and no connection between my intended swing and the final resting place of the ball. I finally decided to either throw away the clubs or find a teacher.

My office, back then, was in downtown Boston. I found a small indoor golf practice facility not far from where I worked. I started with the head teacher, taking lessons mostly in the evening and whacking balls at lunchtime. I will be forever grateful to the instructor because he gave me something that resembled a real golf swing. I went from a reverse pivot and an awful slice to a swing that produced much longer and straighter shots. I ultimately developed a draw—OK, yes, and a hook, on occasion. My scores came down and I could go back on the course without quite as much fear and embarrassment.

I stayed with my teacher for a number of years. I would take a number of lessons in the winter and early spring, than stop when golf started. Except that inevitably, sometime over the summer, things would fall apart, at least a little. Then I’d go back for a lesson or two, my teacher would give me some fixes, and with some time at the range, I’d be back in business—sometimes more, sometimes less.

During my time with this teacher, I came across a couple of other instructors. There’s an outdoor driving range near my house, and I was given a coupon for a lesson from the pro there. I went, just to check it out. The range pro gave me one piece of advice over and over—post around my left leg. He’d been a pro at a long series of clubs for very short periods. He did not use video or any other teaching tool, and he didn’t spend much time talking to me about what I wanted to accomplish. I’m sure he does a fine job starting people off in golf, and maybe he even had some things to offer me, but that wasn’t obvious in the lesson he gave me.

Then I had a lesson from a guy who runs an indoor golf center in my area. He is by all accounts a good teacher and I’ve seen him enough to know he’s a good guy and easy to work with. I go to his place in the winter to hit in bays or to play games on a simulator. In the lesson I had with him, he wanted me to change my swing to a two-plane move where my arms came down from the top at one angle, then halfway down shifted to another. I thought about it after the lesson and decided it would take me forever to be comfortable with the dramatic shift in my swing. I don’t get to practice nearly as much as I’d like and I would need a lot of practicing to get the new swing right. He may well have been right, in terms of what he wanted me to do—but I simply didn’t have the patience or energy to make the dramatic change he suggested.

Fast-forward a few years. By then, I had two issues with my first teacher. The first was he would take calls on his mobile phone during the lessons and that habit was getting worse. The second was, I didn’t really understand the swing he’d given me. Either he didn’t explain it well or I wasn’t smart enough to figure out what he was talking about. When things went wrong on the course, I couldn’t figure out for myself how to fix them. I’d always have to go back to him to get the swing repaired. I felt like I’d hit a plateau both in my play and my understanding of my swing.

Two years ago, I made the switch. I did some homework on teachers around my home and found a GolfTec in a neighboring town. There are certainly golfers out there who are skeptical of the GolfTec model because they ask for a commitment to a number of lessons upfront, but I started with an evaluation and my eyes wide-open. And I found a good teacher who has made my swing more consistent and my game more reliable.

My new instructor focuses only on teaching when I am with him. He’s given me a swing with concepts and key moves that I understand and can repeat. He has built my new swing steadily, with a succession of new pieces over two years. I still go off the rails at times, but I can often fix things by working on them myself. I did need to see him at one point this summer when I was in a bad funk and he gave me a few quick things that helped right away. But now I have a much clearer understand of what I am supposed to do and when I do it, good things happen.

Recently, I started off badly on the front nine, but was able to concentrate on a few swing basics and turned things around on the second nine, dramatically improving my play and my score. Under my previous teacher, I would not have had a clue what I was doing wrong, let alone how to fix it.

I’ll always be grateful to my first teacher—he got me back to a good enough swing to make golf fun again. But sometimes a teacher can take you only so far and you have to graduate to someone else. Maybe you’re stuck in the nineties and want to get to the eighties, or in the eighties and want to get to the seventies, and you’re not sure your teacher can get you over the hump. I don’t know why Tiger or Padraig Harrington switched teachers, but for me, I wanted something simple — help beyond what I was getting so I could play better on a consistent basis. I wanted a better picture of what I needed to do, the guidance and repetitions so I could instill and then repeat the moves, and the capacity to do some self-repairs.

If you’re missing any of that, maybe it’s time for you to move on, too. Or maybe you should do what I probably should have done some years ago—put the teacher’s phone on the tee and knocked the damn thing right down the middle of the hitting bay, with a little draw.

Click here for more discussion in the “Instruction & Academy” forum.

Jamie Katz is a contributor for GolfWRX.com. His views do not necessarily represent the views of the GolfWRX.

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Instruction

The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic

Published

3 weeks ago

Mar 29, 2024

Terry Koehler

My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.

As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.

The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.

Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:

Mis-aligned hands

By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.

The position of the grip in the upper/left hand

I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.

To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.

Too much lower (right) hand on the club

It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.

Gripping too tightly

Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.

So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

Published

1 month ago

Mar 4, 2024

Shawn Clement

Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?

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Instruction

How a towel can fix your golf swing

Published

2 months ago

Feb 26, 2024

Todd McGill

This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.

For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.

Setup

You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.

While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.

Get a Better Shoulder Turn

Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.

In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.

Stay Better Connected in the Backswing

When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.

Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.

Conclusion

I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.

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