I’m not a perfect golfer, I don’t hit every GIR, Wedge in hand from 80-130. This year I hit 63% of greens from that distance and my proximity to the hole when I hit a green was 21 ft. Within 10 yards of my target green I was 93%. Yes I track it, my putting this year was sketchy, I averaged 32 putts and my chipping was horrible, not even worth mentioning, but I went from an 8.2 to a 7.4 and my driving distance averaged 242. Good fun year! I wanted to bring up a couple things. My new partner is a bomber off the tee. He averages 290+ when he catches it. He did hit one 345. 2 weeks ago, we got hooked up with a 2 some as I lost our 2 main partners, Anyhow, The Bomber busted one 321, and this guy says well I played with a guy a few weeks ago who averaged 350-360 off the tee… just sit and absorb that! You know I said so were the fairways made out of macadam!
I then read where a guy happens to follow Lou Stagner and I guess Lou tweeted something about Tour driving distance was 298 and the 3 capper posts I hit the ball 290 and play courses 6900 yds. He says if he entered LPGA tourneys he’d finish in the top 20 every week. Which prompted a response from Charley Hull. I’ll let you play the red tees and I’ll smoke your ass! I’d pay to see that capper get his ass handed to him. My advice, don’t think you are that good because u are a 3 LPGA golfers are in +2 or +3 land! Finally, TDub was on the range at Liberty yesterday, good to see him, a guy asked him what’s your advice to a low handicap golfer to get better? TDub says: “Stop watching F-in You-Tube, go the range and Beat your Brains Out! Quote of the year in my book! I’m happy with my progress over the last 2 years, I did beat my brains out… I did pick up 20 yds. I did practice putting drills and that just stayed the same. I do practice chipping a lot and that was marginally better. My take away this year…. I don’t watch YouTube., beating your brains out does work, I haven’t seen an amateur average 350 off a tee, and I’ll say it once more, Tour Players—-male or female are that good! I appreciate the Brady’s and Stagners and they’ve found a great way to make a living for themselves, but in my opinion….in general, they sell false hope…. LOL ! Love to hear you guys opine on stuff as we close out 2023
These are what I have heard often over the years.
“I just golf for exercise”… and they rode golf carts.
Granted, the marketing for golf equipment has been selling more distance since day one. The teaching side of the game has also picked up this gullible theme. All the online tutorials for golf swing if not most of them are taunting more distance.
They are selling the dream of an easy way to get a better golf game. To benefit themselves by profiting from viewership.
I know the new golfers will probably follow the internet golf more so than an experienced golfer. I had guys and gals sent me clips from internet platform for comment. This was after I told them not to view too many of these clips at their current level of the game.
It’s like trying to keep the hands of children away from a candy jar after you told them too much candy is bad for them.
Golfers are no different than other walks in life. Looking for an easy way to achieve the goal. This motive of obtaining a solution was the mother of most invention in human history from the invention of the wheels to automobile to airplane.
Unfortunately, human is one half of the formula of this game, when combining a golf ball with a human swinging a golf club to propel the golf ball at a predetermined direction. All parts needs to work together to achieve a better result.
The human part is the dominating part of the game. But it’ll be a hard sell with hard work and dedication needed for any improvement.
Some of the internet teaching are pretty good, worth a try, if the golfer has no clue of what the correct fundaments of a golf swing are.
The smart golfers will figure it out faster than the rest that there is no short cut in this game. Even at a level of opening the conforming restriction on the equipment. It’ll only create chaos and disagreement.
Those who understand the game will gladly play by the rules.
Those who are new and ignorant will try to break the cookie mode.
Going to temper the dont watch you tube advice with don’t watch everything on you tube. I watch very targeted instruction from coaches I trust and only on the things I am working on. Just beating my brains out without knowing what I am really trying to do seems like I’d just be a busy fool. Dan Grieve had helped my short game massively and along with a few other videos have contributed to me dropping from 22.5 to 16.9 this summer (better startegy and the right equipment played a part too). I love Bobs does Sports purely for entertainment. The danger with YT is seeing new tips every day (90% of golfers don’t do this…save 10 shots a round yada yada yada) so people can end up with no consistent practice. I found tips that I liked and resonated then worked for weeks on just those one or two things. In the same way you wouldn’t go to a coach and aske for a different lesson every couple of days. Having something to work on the the discipline to keep doing it is important.
Weirdest quote I heard was form a guy who wouldn’t have a lesson in case it made him worse!
Yeah I’d take the other side of that action, too. I’ve read that same statement from time to time in golf forums…
Sure the bomber is longer off the tee but most likely doesn’t regularly play on pro tournament level courses and conditions … most likely doesn’t have the approach and short game and putting that the pros do … and really most likely over the course of a few tourney rounds back to back will have a few blow-up holes that will sink him pretty deep in the standings.
In fact I’d probably bet he couldn’t beat a male true scratch golfer over 4 rounds in 4 days…
Yeah that one kills me. I’m a dedicated walker and hear plenty of lame excuses for not walking and justifying sitting and riding… 
Anyway back to the theme of this thread - yes!
I have a good friend who “should” be a better golfer than me … he’s a year younger, in better shape, more athletic, been golfing longer, doesn’t have the same arthritis and aches and pains as me, etc etc.
But what does he do? Spends time at night looking on YT, plays with a group of other doctors who undoubtedly are passing on that week’s hot tip, … When we play a round together I watch him frozen over the ball on each shot running through checklist … and by the end of the round I’m 10 strokes ahead and I’m not that good.
But…
What’s helped me improve this year is not just more practice but more focused practice time - including working on just one or two things from my latest in-person lesson. By doing that I was able to get the driver thing this year - after not even carrying one! - and now I look forward to hitting off the next tee.
And spending a lotta time with wedges and on putting.
I do understand for those who could not walk the golf courses yet still enjoy golf. We have a few golfer who have bad knees and hips from their injury caused by playing sports in high schools and college. One guy had to get off the golf course after 15 holes even while riding a golf cart, his knees just gave up. He was apologizing that he needed to leave us while his face was full of wrinkles from pain. We almost called a medic but he insisted that he’ll be fine. One guy accompanied him to the parking lot to make sure that he could drive home safely.
At my age, I still like to walk the golf courses. Thanks to the use of a push cart. Soon it’ll be replaced, I hope, by a motorized push cart. However, the model which will follow the golfers is out of my budget. Always debating on the cost of purchase + maintenance to the benefit.
There was a period of time immediately after my surgery which I rode the golf cart, not because I could not walk the golf course but because I was weak to even push a golf cart up and down the fairway,
Agreed. I’d have never found Monte Scheinblum, nor would his advice have helped my game, without youtube clips allowing me to try before I buy. I also think the AMG guys are fantastic with their videos, breaking down often illusory movements and providing good data about what’s efficient and what isn’t.
I think Jon’s videos are great as well for helping people with his area of instruction.
Where people get into trouble is they listen to everybody. Plus they don’t filter out obviously contradictory information, but instead try to make it all fit together. That way lies madness… I tell people new to golf (who ask), “Find an instructor and take some lessons. See if their advice meshes with you and helps you. If it does, then asking about something you saw, on YouTube, at the range, whatever, is fine. But don’t start trying to change what they’re trying to teach you, just because you saw XYZ Youtube instructor tell you that change was ‘a secret to 10 more yards’.”
(Or I could have just quoted this:
The danger with YT is seeing new tips every day (90% of golfers don’t do this…save 10 shots a round yada yada yada) so people can end up with no consistent practice…
and saved myself all the typing, LOL.)
Nobody wants to hear the answer that making sustained motor changes, like a material change to one’s golf swing, is a long, involved process, with lots of work, time, sweat, and obstacles to overcome. It does not happen overnight, and is frequently a three steps forward/two (sometimes four!) steps back, meandering process.
Until one day, you’re practicing and having the same sense of frustration as before, but you realize you’ve hit all 10 mid-irons in the air, about the distance they each needed to go, and with mostly the kind of flight you wanted. But now you’re getting annoyed that some are 5 degrees (half an extended arms’-length fist) away from the target instead of landing near the target like some of them. Which is about a 40’ miss at 150. A year ago, you were annoyed at topping a third of them and chunking another third.
All because you got quality instruction and feedback so you weren’t practicing bad habits, you put the time in on those good habits and drills, you recorded your progress, and you stuck with it.
The LPGA shade is sometimes funny to read from the delusional.
They are professionals. Their job is to do nothing all day except get good at golf, and we’re supposed to be surprised they can kick the ass of a hobbyist? Their wedge game is phenomenal. Granted, they don’t have the distance of a top male golfer, but that’s a top male golfer, not even a scratch. They may ‘only’ average 258.4 on their drives (#75 of the LPGA Tour, average driving distance), but they hit that number, every. Single. Time. I hit longer than that if I connect, but a lot of tops/slices 200 yds downrange and 100 right/pull hooks into the weeds, drag down my driving distance average. And so do a lot of ‘good’ male ams.
They don’t. Because they’re pros. And so on.
That said, the hype a little while back about the one LPGA player being more accurate than male PGA players, because her average prox on GIR was lower than all of theirs for a given set of distance bands, got a little silly there. (The answer is that their course setups are easier, allowing them to shoot at more flags—as stated by actual LPGA and PGA caddies and coaches.) Still an outstanding feat to average closer to the pin from X distance away, using a 2-3 clubs bigger club than someone like Morikawa.
I have the same golfing buddy! He’s 5 years younger (but we’re both old lol) and stronger and grew up playing whereas I started at age 30. We are all searching for that swing feel, but he latches onto something new constantly. He has twice as many rounds as I do this year and I’m really struggling, but I’m scraping out an 87 and he’s shooting 97 (sometimes generously).
He actually was mad at me for a time because I wasn’t giving him swing tips and golf advice…I know enough about certain things to advise someone, but golf isn’t one of them lol. I tell him a few things I notice about his (lack of) game. No matter what he is always swinging 110%. If you’re trying to hit a low runner out of the woods why does your backswing look like John Daly? If you don’t have your swing what is your go-to to keep it in play? Do you feel like your SW shot from 30 yards needs that same full rip you use from 100?
I like a few YT videos, but you need to be selective and then put some time in to make something work. Watching a new one at lunch and thinking about it during work league probably won’t help and it’s a fluke if it does. Me I’m big on some swing drills. My instructor (and YT) have provided a few that resonate with me and if I use them regularly it helps.
Yeah that’s a big part of the problem = most people who are searching YT for a tip, a fix, a drill … are, unfortunately, totally completely 100% unable to self diagnose their own swing … and to really identify the root cause…
Clearly the guys posting in here are savvy, but those other guys would benefit hugely from… 1. a quality lesson, followed by 2. working working working on that one thing and one drill that you were told to do.
Oh well. Everybody is allowed to participate in the game in the way they see fit for them…
My teacher, years ago, gave me some interesting advice about offering…or even worse… listening to advice on course. I’ll get to that in a minute. I have a practice routine on the putting greens (clock drill with my right hand only, 2,4,6,10 ft) Guys will ask me about it…and I’m like sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn’t… it’s just my pre-round routine. That’s about as in depth as I get. So Mr. Bishop said this: Never offer advice, and if someone offers something on course…ONLY LISTEN to what they say if they are under par to that point in a round if you are playing a friendly round. Most players that offer unsolicited advice (you know who I’m talking about right?) are probably about an 8-15 handicap, that for some reason only known to the golfing Gods hit 5 str8 great shots in a row prior to them thinking about it and pulling the 6th one OB!. So if you want to be an 8-15 hdcp feel free and listen to them. Just how he presented it… #2 Just say, not being unfriendly, but you do know taking or giving ADVICE ON COURSE is against the rules and I just don’t want to get in that poor habit. I’ll figure out my flaw eventually, but I do appreciate your point of view. That was some of the soundest advice he ever gave…He was full of little quips like that.
There is someone in my group that says “you lifted your head” after every bad shot someone other than him makes. Or says that ball is ob when I know it isn’t probably because he is in his 70’s and his eyesight isn’t quite what it used to be. I know my bad shots are not caused by lifting my head.
Yes, some of us seasoned golfer will talk a little more than the others. On the golf course of not. LOL.
It might be a sign, before losing the marbles.
You guys probably get Jon’s newsletter, but copying in his recent one that talks about this subject…
Years ago, I was speaking with a renowned swing coach. He was working with a PGA Tour player, but he was not confident the relationship would last or that his efforts would be effective.
When I asked him why, he responded, “Because he’s a collector.”
I had no clue what the phrase meant, and when I asked, he told me that throughout his career, the player had gone through a mind-boggling amount of swing coaches. His belief was that the player’s constant search for swing information held him back from achieving what many thought would be a hall-of-fame career. But he couldn’t seem to help himself!
Many regular golfers are no different. They LOVE learning more and more about the golf swing. But they have a few more things working against them, like:
• They don’t have PGA Tour talent
• The internet is designed to feed them more of what they want
This combination usually leads to a lot of confusion over the ball, which is why I usually warn against cruising YouTube for swing tips. Here’s why…
There is more information on the golf swing than ever. Literally thousands of resources.
A lot of the advice is well-researched and accurate. Some of it flat-out sucks.
How do you know the difference?
I believe the odds are stacked against you because of:
• Relevancy
• Continuity
• The Algorithm
The biggest problem I see is relevancy . Your golf swing is a puzzle that has multiple pieces. The goal is to make them fit together to hit functional shots.
With so many different instructors giving different versions of the golf swing, you have no idea what is relevant to YOUR swing. The whole thing can break down if you start changing out one piece for another.
Continuity is another massive issue. Your mind needs to be as quiet as possible over the ball to play your best golf. That’s very hard to do with several voices in your head giving you different ideas on how to swing a club.
If I sent your swing to 10 instructors, they all might find different ways to communicate a solution to your problems.
You have no chance of improving if you listen to all ten at once.
However, if you chose one and stuck with their plan, you would have a much better chance.
Perhaps the worst part of it all is the algorithm .
If YouTube (Instagram/TikTok/etc.) sees you watching these videos and engaging with them more, that is all they will show you. And they have an endless supply!
The path of least resistance is to consume more. But golf doesn’t work that way.
You don’t need to be a swing expert to play well. If anything, THE LESS you know about the golf swing, the better.
So what should you do?
Unless you have a very advanced understanding of the golf swing, I suggest getting off the swing-education train.
You have two options:
• Work with an instructor and get customized swing advice.
• Focus your time on more skill-based practice methods (many of the ones I discuss in The Four Foundations of Golf)
You can do both at once.
It is estimated that less than 10-20% of golfers are currently taking lessons.
I am a big proponent of working with an instructor at some point.
They can make your path to improvement more efficient and give you great ideas on how to practice effectively.
If you do take lessons, you need to commit, though.
Don’t show your teacher YouTube videos from other coaches and ask if you should be doing “that”
(I’ve seen this happen)
Stick with their plan.
And if you do want to keep watching videos, please just stick with one voice.
Thx Jon!
It was funny to read that today, a few days after our discussion in these pages.
Why so many swing coaches did one go through? Perhaps someone is looking for a miracle without hard work?
The golf swing itself is very simple. Especially if one applies the 5 modern fundamentals as written by Mr Hogan. Grip can be weak, strong, neutral whatever YOU are comfortable with etc. Get those 5 down. We all have phones to record our swings and slow it down. The secret is in beating balls to work your own swing. To hit a golf ball far one must create lag on the downswing. All players do this, some more than others. Beating balls, to me is fun, for me it creates focus. There is a secret within the secret though…. One word that everyone needs to eventually apply while beating balls. Here’s the secret, here’s the only thing one needs to apply. SEQUENCE. That’s all there is. If the SEQUENCE is correct going back and all the way through the finish. 
BOOM! You don’t need a swing coach for that!
At least, we agree there on the golf swing is supposed to be relatively simple; after the basic elements are acquired.
Need to find what works for each individual through practice and play.
The swing coaches are there to assure the golfer what they already have.
Each one of the Tour players has a good golf swing to get them there. For some reason, they started to doubt their own ability and started to modify whatever got them there in the first place. This is where the swing coach comes in.
I can name at least two major winners who lost it all by chasing the “perfect golf swing”. Why did they want the change? I have no idea.
Like TW said of his long term coach, Harmon was a conman. I picked that up in some publication.
Little did he know, the conversation between a swing coach and a golfer may not include technical aspects each and every time. Most of the time the golfers just need to be reassured of who they are and what they are.
They already have the tools, the need to be reminded that they have the tools and they know how to use the tools is just as important as acquiring the tools.
One of my coaches was teaching with this style and I was thinking that he was cheating me on the clock. Little did I know at the time that he was the best coach I’ll have. I did not realize that until much later.
I saw that ridiculous post by the 3 capper in that forum. Honestly, what a moron. But it’s pretty common.