Looks like we have a new video series. Also makes me want to take a lesson.
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Taking a lesson is never a bad thing, but if you really want to improve, plan to put in a lot of work outside the lesson. Changing habits is hard.
I look forward to watching this.
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There’s the issue. Life with work, and three young kids makes that difficult. I can spend one week grinding and the next maybe hitting balls, but being focused on my kids enjoyment of the game, and not on getting better.
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My coach really focused on that idea. She would teach a skill, drill it and then have me teach it back to her. I found that super helpful as I had to really grasp the concepts and could practice them at the range without her, which ultimately is where most of the growth is going to happen. One hour long lesson isn’t going to fix my game, but it is a step closer with each practice.
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I say this to my students all the time: Do not underestimate what three minutes of focused practice, often in a mirror, four times a day can do for your golf swing.
Y’all have twelve minutes a day. Do it during commercials. Do it on a conference call. Do it while brushing your teeth.
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This was awesome. Makes me want to take a few lessons. Time limits and a 6-month playing season means I won’t do anything more than a tune up until October (I’ve learned the hard way not to try and make big changes during the season), but I think at that point I’d like to set up something like a monthly lesson from Oct - March to try and diagnose and methodically work through making some real improvements.
That was freaking great. More Cody please!
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makes me want to go to Altus*
The combo of on course and technical training in the video ROCKED. I understand most casual golfers need to literally learn how to swing a club better/hit certain shots, and I know this will come off as mega low cap privilege, but I need to learn how to score and manage a round more than fine tune the swing. It was cool to see that in action with an already good golfer like Cody.
With that being said, I dove into the DECADE program and played the most stress free, free-swinging, confident round of my life last weekend. Shot a -1 71 with a snap hooked drive into the water on 18 (that one hurt, obviously still a ways to go with the mental game/commitment to shots)
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Watching these videos reminds me I know so little about the golf swing
Or how to read/ approach courses
Excited for more of this
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I reckon this type of talk, well-meaning and I am sure correct as it is, puts people off having lessons.
Perhaps people who work in golf don’t realise how little time most people have available to them to get to a golf course or range.
Certainly if you can’t/won’t get regular practice time that should be communicated before commencing tuition, so the coach can tweak what/how they teach you, but if 0 is not having a lesson and 100 is complementing tuition with regular practice, I feel like getting the lesson is north of 50 on its own.
I think the fitness crowd actually has the advice that golf should adopt: if you can’t do a 50-minute workout, do a 20-minute workout. If you can’t do a 20-minute workout, walk around the block. Doing something is better than doing nothing and might get you on the road to the 50-minute workout.
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I do disagree to a certain extent. Ive found taking lessons semi regularly (2x a month) dramatically improved my ball striking and enjoyment without any other practice time. That supervised practice plus mental reps of what I’m working on lowered my handicap significantly. There is definitely a ceiling to it though and if I could combine it with practice time I would hope it would be even better. But in a vacuum I’m choosing an hour session with a coach over 5-6 hours solo range time
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oh man this thread 'bout to get spicy, and I’m here for it
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So I should lie to people? 
I posted above about 9-12 minutes a day. If you’re passionate about golf, spend 10 fewer minutes on the Refuge and work on your golf swing.
I’d put it around 5. Maybe 10, depending on the lesson.
So like I said, 9-12 minutes.
2x a month is a lot of practice time, with someone very (hopefully) well trained at helping you do things really well…
I’m not saying that you need to spend an hour five days a week practicing (though, depending on what you want to achieve, possibly). I specifically said you can probably at least commit to 12 minutes or so a day, and people would be surprised at what you can get out of that.
What you can’t really do if you want to see some decent results is take a lesson and then just never practice, and think that because you “know” something to do, you can do it all the time.
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I have learned from bitter experience that when someone segments your post like that and replies bit by bit, that’s the time to tap out. Every second you spend engaging with that person from then on is wasted.
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First day spending much time on the Refuge in months. I forgot how much I love this place
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Perhaps people who work in golf don’t realise how little time most people have available to them to get to a golf course or range.
You don’t need a ton of time every single day at a course or range to get better though. 5-10 minutes per day with a club (or even without a club) at home in front of a mirror can help people improve and is better than nothing.
but if 0 is not having a lesson and 100 is complementing tuition with regular practice, I feel like getting the lesson is north of 50 on its own.
I strongly disagree with this. If this truly was the case and simply showing up to the lesson was over half the battle then why are people so bad at improving/lowering their handicap?
I think the fitness crowd actually has the advice that golf should adopt: if you can’t do a 50-minute workout, do a 20-minute workout. If you can’t do a 20-minute workout, walk around the block. Doing something is better than doing nothing and might get you on the road to the 50-minute workout.
Doesn’t this directly contradict what you said about how little time most people have to get to a course or range??
Making changes to the golf swing is hard. No doubt about it. If people think they are going to show up to 2 lessons per month and not practice in between and expect to make substantial progress/swing changes they are conning themselves. That simply doesn’t happen.
I have improved quite a bit by doing dry reps, mirror work, etc a few minutes each day combined with range practice, but even working on the same key pieces for 6 months as soon as I stop practicing for a few weeks and just play, old habits start coming back in and ball-striking suffers. As soon as I get back to practicing and working on my key pieces, the ball-striking comes back.
I have learned from bitter experience that when someone segments your post like that and replies bit by bit, that’s the time to tap out. Every second you spend engaging with that person from then on is wasted.
This doesn’t make sense to me either. @iacas just split out various statements you made and explained why he disagreed with them. Why would any additional time you spend engaging be time wasted?
I think a couple key things should be noted:
- You can get better and practice while not at the course.
- Doing something (as long as you know what to work on) for 5 minutes per day is better than nothing.
- Lessons are helpful, but it’s absolutely less than 50% of the improvement strategy. Making long term swing changes that stick/hold up under pressure requires work outside of lessons. No way around that.
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Any tips on picking an instructor if we do decide we want lessons?
Red flags?
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They’re really out here making every kind of video except Strapped.
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