I hear you… he’s not there yet, but his name is Ben fulkerson…
I can’t answer how to find a good swing pro, and I don’t recommend Ben to everyone… but he has really helped me get a feel for some of the technical parts of the swing as well as helped me develop some different shots…
He also recommended golf scrimmages for some drills, if you want to check it out!
I’m also a big believer in Adam young and the practice manual…
Cool, I’ll look for him. ‘Technical’ is great, IMHO. I want to know why X is resulting in 22A, but X/2 only results in 3A. Or why I suddenly have developed a rocket launch profile on my drives that Elon Musk would envy…
Adam Young is fantastic. I had a few professional obligations that ate the time, otherwise I’d have totally gone for that deal on immersive teaching he was offering a few months back. Beyond what he normally offers in the Strike and Accuracy Plans.
I’ve been playing golf for 23 years now and I’ve probably had ten instructors – mostly through one-off gift certificates my family gives me. I would say the majority were good instructors. I agree that you have to find someone whose teaching style you prefer to get the most out of it.
My take is that being a golf instructor is a very difficult job. The instructor has to meet the pupil where they’re at in terms of skill level and go from there. People have unrealistic expectations of how quickly they can improve and the student is either unwilling or unable put in the work required. The pragmatic solution offered up is to improve your short game. It definitely will lower your score and is something that people can achieve if they have the discipline.
However, short game advice is not what an aspiring golfer wants to hear. Every hacker wants to be that crazy good ball striker they see at the far end of the range because they know deep down that no matter how good their short game gets, it’s not enough to get into that league. So, what can be done? I’ll take another large bucket, please. 
Totally agree. The more lessons I take - and I’ve been going fairly regularly for the past 5-6 months - the more I start to internalize just how HARD this crazy game is!
But the #1 real key as had been mentioned earlier is … COMMUNICATION.
The instructor needs to be able to communicate pretty difficult concepts in any one of several various ways until the student can understand, and act on, all that information. Ie. different people learn differently and a good instructor can adapt their teaching to each individual.
Now… how to find that wonderful person…???
Recommendations are a good start but imho you’ll have to do some trial and error in evaluating different pros and who you can mesh with…
Is Fulkerson coming down to Houston? [EDIT: Let me rephrase that. When is he coming to Houston?]
Because the Ben Fulkerson golf guy I find is a teaching pro in Kentucky. Which is a bit of a commute.
If I were in KY, I’d totally look him up though. His website was saying things I liked.
I get that; it’s one of the reasons I like Adam Young (and our host) so much, because they put numbers on just how hard it is to do the things we do with a well-lit golf ball.
I don’t mind drills. Or hard, true statements—again, like our host has stated at this site: if you’re only able to devote this much time to getting better, you can realistically expect to only improve this much.
I just don’t want someone who, in the words of (IIRC, Gary McCord), sits in a chair, and periodically yells at you, “Keep your head down!”, as you beat through a bucket of balls. Or, like the guy I tried a few lessons with 30 years ago, who was a total devotee of the Leadbetter method, and my swing needed to be flatter, with the bigger muscles dominating.
Which would have been GREAT, if it worked.
Yes. Bens last day at my club in Kentucky was yesterday.
He’s headed to kingwood soon.