Has Golf Instruction Evolved in the Best Direction?

Here is a little food for thought for all the golfers out there and I know before I write this that a lot of my fellow professionals are probably not going to agree with this but that’s fine.  We are all entitled to our opinions and this just happens to be mine and it is my blog.

Over the years I have learned a great deal about the golf swing, how people learn it, and about helping people strike a golf ball effectively.  The one thing that I have found is that the more I learned the clearer and more simple it has all become.

Recently I have been involved in many conversations and debates on how a golf club should best be swung.  Invariably, sooner or later, it evolves into a discussion of positions and frequently includes pictures, videos, graphs, etc. in order to prove a point.

The Modern Premise

Golf instruction has evolved over the years and especially since the introduction of high speed photography.  With the most recent developments in technology it has accelerated.  We now even have scientist in disagreement.  The prevailing theory is that if we can break the swing of successful players down into small enough increments we can discover why they strike the ball so well and pass that information on.

My Conclusion

My conclusion, after years of research and personal experience as both a teacher and a player, is that great ball strikers didn’t become great ball strikers because of working on positions.  Those positions evolved as a result of  improving ball striking.

I think most can agree that Ben Hogan and Moe Norman could control ball flight as well or better than anyone.  In their pursuit of ball flight do you really think either of them said to them self “If I just work on achieving this position my ball flight will improve?”  I personally don’t think so, however, I do think that it is far more likely they would hit a shot and say “What does the club need to at impact to achieve the ball flight or shot that I want?”

That is how they ended up with two totally different swings that could both control the ball.

Bobby Jones summed it up very well in this statement:

"Apart from the intention to deliver the blow in a proper way, there is nothing more important to the golf swing than that it should have the qualities of smoothness and rhythm, and I can conceive of no reason why it should not possess both these qualities so long as it is not interfered with by the conscious effort to pass by rote through a series of prescribed positions."

My final conclusion is that we need to return to teaching ball striking and how to use the tool (club) and not concentrate so much on positions.  I have a pretty strong hunch that great teachers have always understood this with all levels of players.

Technology

I am not asking anyone to abandon technology.  There is some very good technology out there that is particularly useful in certain situations and can be used to reinforce what the student sees and feels.  All I am recommending is that we go back to teaching from a student centered impact backwards and stop teaching from an instructor centered club/body positions forward.


That is it from the cave for now.