You might be the best out there at golf, but it’s always helpful to have an instructor to guide you at every avenue of your life. It is hardly ever that you will come across a golfer who does not require any help.
There are always people out there who have studied or got training on certain subjects for quite a good number of years. Most of who go into professional level under these categories.
We can’t always expect to turn to google every time we suffer from some health complications. This is when we seek the help of a professional because these professionals have gathered experiences which we haven’t gained.
The wisdom which they’ve gathered can do a lot by helping you in your personal experience. This can help to boost your abilities by improving you a lot quicker than when you try to do it by yourself.
Why Do You Need a Golf Instructor?
For the most part as mentioned before, if you want to progress in life faster, you need the assistance of a mentor. The trust that you and your mentor carry is a vital ingredient in helping you to strengthen your foundation. Preferably for the one who is calm, supportive, friendly, helpful, knowledgeable and not rushing from lesson to lesson.
In this era of the internet, anyone can pick up knowledge from the web. All you need is a little computing or smartphone proficiency to get the hang of it. Even instructors these days can post tutorial videos to teach willing learners.
In spite of that, how do you know which ones to rely on?Most of all, why should you even be looking for an instructor when you can learn it online and save yourself the hassle?
Well, the problem here is that there are too many incorrect lessons on the web which can easily mislead any individual. If you are directed in the wrong path, you will pick up wrong lessons where you can’t improve but destroy your golfing skills.
Therefore, how do you clear out the debris and get your hands on the goodies? Yes, you’ve guessed that right; by finding the right instructor.
Individual coaching can train you as a golfer. The reason that coaching is essential even if you are a beginner and have never also swung a club before is that habits can get set in very quickly within the golf swing.
If you can start to straighten those out at the beginning of your golf journey, it will put you in much better shape as a golfer later down the line.
Looking at it from these multiple different angles, you can finally understand how finding a coach can work best for you.
The Common Mistake
There are common mistakes which many of us have been making might affect our performance. If you’ve been excellent at golf all your life, even from a very early age, you might be thinking that you are a very good natural golfer who is progressing with little to almost no instructions in the game.
I hate to disappoint you; you’re not as excellent as you think. The biggest mistake here is that, because you think you are good enough, you don’t keep any room for improvements within yourself.
You don’t allow yourself to bloom to the greatest extent as you have already restricted yourself. In sports, things aren’t always as perfect as they seem to be but rather very unpredictable. Always bear in mind that you must let yourself learn, no matter how good you are at it.
If you don’t, practicing and playing in the same strategy, same tactics and methods might result in your game predictable. You will remain stale for many years straight, especially in a sport like golf.
Know What You Need
Before you start you need to determine what are you hoping to achieve through the lessons you are about to get started with. You don’t visit an eye doctor if you hurt your shoulder bone, right?
In the same way, you need to understand your instructor’s primary role. They may not be the instructor that you are looking for. You need to set your own goals first to identify your strength and weaknesses as a golfer because it’s the same when it comes to instructors.
Each coach has their strength and weaknesses. Expecting to learn everything from one particular person or failing to identify your goals wouldn’t help you work on your shortcomings any better. Instead, ask yourself what you’re willing to achieve and in what aspect you are assigning one individual.
By doing so, you’ll have a different viewpoint and a different perception on each area you’re planning onto improve. You could be wanting to work on your driving distance, putting or even your short game.
For instance, if you want a lesson on your putting, you should always head for an instructor whose area of expertise is putting. They’ll have all sorts of equipment and gears to help you to achieve an in-depth putting stroke.
What Kind of Instructor Do You Need?
Lessons will always make much easier to learn golf as it is one of the most challenging game till date. If you don’t allow yourself to learn it well, you will lag behind.
A mentor always makes things easier and choosing the right one for you, which can be the key to make a big difference in your game. Look for a coach who is relevant to the goals that you want to achieve.
For example, if you want to pick up competitive golf and play at tournaments as the next big thing, you should consider looking for a good player teacher. That way you’ll have a complete idea of someone who has played what you require and also someone who is doing it now, all at the same time.
On the other hand, if you want to work on your golf swing, try looking for coaches who are good in biomechanics to help you to understand how the body moves efficiently.
You should also be shortlisting someone who has had good students in the past. If you’re a junior golfer looking to improve, you might want to find a coach who has other junior golfers they’ve taught, and they are also doing quite well.
Additionally, building up the trust with your instructor is a key factor. If you don’t trust who you are working with, it does not matter how good this teacher is, it just not going to work for you. You cannot get any progress if you are always going to doubt what they are going to preach, their methodology, etc.
How to Find the Right Instructor
The rule of thumb is to go for the instructor who you are most comfortable with. This could be having similar tastes in certain things, personality types, individual needs, common beliefs or any sort of common grounds which connects you and your instructor.
Apart from that, you should also acknowledge whether or not their teaching philosophy is in complete sync with you. You need to be on the same page as your instructor. If you are not compatible with your instructor, golfing isn’t going to be all that easy for you to grasp.
Some professionals may be working just for beginners, some for experienced or some for specialized groups. You need to do your research on your interested mentor to find who is right for you.
Here are some more ways to help you to find out the best instructor for you:
Golf Instructors for Beginners
Beginners will be the most benefited by the ways listed below, as those ways will give them a clear idea and understanding of the game in general. Without further dealy, let’s begin.
The internet has been very reliant for many of us for quite some time now. The best and the easiest way to find a golf instructor who is in your local area is simply through the Google! Search for an instructor who you think best suits your level.
If you are a beginner, always look for an instructor who teaches beginners level golf and so on.
Online Presence
Websites like pgatour.com, golfchannel.com or golfdigest.co.jp can help you look for the closest clubs. Find your nearest pros from these or look up other golf websites. If you look for your most adjacent advantages here, you will be automatically provided with a list of all the professionals within your search.
This will give you the opportunity to search whether you are a beginner, experienced or an improver golfer. By finding your nearest golfing clubs here, you can view a list of all the available dates and timings as well as the type of lessons suitable for you.
Word of Mouth
Just go by word of mouth. If you know anyone who plays golf or had golf lessons, by all means, ask them and see what their experience was.
For Experts
The same rules of search engines to find your nearest instructor, do apply for you expert golfers too. However, there are a couple of ways that this landscape in particular for more experienced golfers is completely changing.
Marketing
It is necessary to look up how golf coaches are marketing themselves. You can look up videos on YouTube to see whose style of coaching suits you the best.
Ask Your Compatriots
Of course, the same word of mouth applies here too. If you are a regular golfer and have come across someone who has improved their golfing a lot over the years, don’t be shy to ask them what methods have they implied in their improvement.
Technology
Another quick tip is to find a coach who uses technology (video launch monitors, cameras, force plates, etc.) to supplement their teaching. Golf technology has expanded tremendously in the past years.
Although it’s not an absolute necessity, by using the technology your instructor will have a much deeper insight into a player’s swing.
It will also allow them to communicate with the golfer. Based on the data from the launch monitors and the videos, they will be able to make the required changes to see an improvement in the golfer.
However, always look out if your instructor is bringing too many technological equipment in the practice lessons. Not only that will disrupt your concentration but also make you more reliant to these devices.
Sort Out Pricing
If you’re looking at individual coaching, the amount of money you should be spending behind it is one of the toughest things to sort out. The truth is, there is no guarantee that the higher the price the better the instructor is going to be. It can also be otherwise in some cases.
Don’t stress over this because it all comes down to you. Unless you take the plunge and have that lesson, it’s always going to be difficult to know.
The instructors who are more popular will always cost you more. If you want to cut down on the cost, you can opt for signing up for a series of lessons. Usually, these series of lessons come in a package of 4-6 lessons reducing your cost drastically.
Group lessons can also cost less many times compared to individual experiences, but most learners prefer a private learning atmosphere to help them build up their learning procedure.
What to Avoid while Searching for Right Golf Instructor
Often some instructors fill up the students’ minds with countless lessons that their heads become overwhelmed and stifled. This can also pressurize the students and be the very reason for poor performances.
If things don’t work in your favor, you might want to stop looking for an instructor immediately. Take a break to spot what went wrong. This usually occurs when your instructor fails to identify your lackings.
For example, if you’re in need to fix your rooting but your coach instead focuses on your swing, things are most definitely bound to go haywire.
However, your instructor might be doing these just right but not paying enough attention to you. If that’s the case, then he or she isn’t probably fit for you in the long run.
By always keeping the following in mind, you can get a firm idea whether or not your coach is attentive to you;
- They’re continually looking for ways to end the lessons as early as they can.
- They are paying way too much attention to the time instead of checking up on you.
- Glued to their phones.
- Kills your focus with too many tech devices. Not only does this distract you but also makes you more dependent on the technology.
- Not well behaved or has lacking in communication skills. Preferably the ones who take ages to respond to your messages or refuse to give a follow-up or scheduled lessons by coming up with numerous excuses.
- Not skilled or educated enough in their area of expertise. Many may claim to be golf instructors with zero knowledge of the game whatsoever.
- Not an active accreditation holder.
- Doesn’t let you voice out your opinion. Many self-proclaimed experts with little knowledge in golf tend to believe their ideologies cannot be surpassed. They might be feeding you with the wrong instructions all along.
Patience is always not the key, especially in these circumstances. If you feel overwhelmed and stressed and if you notice no progress in your game for months, this isn’t the right instructor for you.
Thoughts on the Game of Golf
The golf technique is so vast and varied. Almost everyone you meet will have a new insight and opinion on the sport. It’s vast, extensive and brimming with new knowledge each day.
By identifying your lackings, you can allow yourself with the opportunity to expand and thrive with new golfing techniques and lessons every day. It won’t happen at once. This is another place you might be forgetting to pay attention to. Work your way gradually up to the top.
If you’re targetted to focus on your putting and chipping abilities at the same time, don’t do so. Improve your break putts and your downhill putts first. Then move towards improving your fringe.
By finding the right instructor for you, you will get the assistance to work on yourself by nurturing and strengthening your required area.
Golf takes patience. There is no such thing as a quick fix in golf. It is a slow, steady process which requires your maximum patience. You might even need several weeks before you make changes on your swing to make it right. If you lose hope and give up, you might never advance.
Our Final Thoughts
Before investing your time and money in several lessons week in and week out, you should ensure you have all of these sorted out before you work on improving your game.
In addition, if the communication between you and your golf instructor isn’t right or let’s say, if the teacher-student relationship between you and your coach has lackings, it is going to get difficult for you to settle things down. You might want to invest in finding an instructor who is the fun type and makes lessons interesting rather than sluggish and boring.
It’s never a positive attitude for an instructor to let their students get frustrated with the mechanics and learning procedure. Lastly, apart from those above, give yourself the room to develop and grow.
