Player -vs- Teaching Pro

[Mr. Satchmo]

It's not the teaching pro's fault if your ball position got out of whack while he wasn't there. It sounds like the things he wants you to work on came easier once you fixed your ball position. Unless he told you to use that certain ball position, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt here.

Sorry if I came off like a jerk. I really don't know what your instructor told you, and I also don't know if your instructor is good or not. I just know that I've worked on things my instructor told me to work on before, and it didn't work out until he saw I was doing something wrong.

Th best thing to do is to write down everything the teaching pro taught at the lesson that way if problems are creeping up, one look at the notes will clear it up. . .it's clearly not the teaching pro's fault if someone forgets their teachings

 

[bogey_russ]

i play with a lot of scratch, +, and very low single digit handicaps... to tell you the truth... none of them have given me any unsolicited advice and thats how i like it
especially when we are playing a round of golf
now on the driving range a couple of + hcp guys told me a few things and it totally screwed me up beyond belief hahaha where as a 3 cap gave me something simple that fixed me for the day but its just a bandaid
i am one of the luckiest guys on the planet in hooking up with my coach
we have 5 teaching pros at our course... thats a ton for one course... add our sister courses and we have a dozen
2 of the pros were actually tour players and one of them is my coach who was a leadbetter academy instructor
i take everything anyone else says on the course/range with a grain of salt

heck why not just read a ton of tips from golf magazines... they have a bunch of great tips from top notch teachers?
but in all seriousness... if the pro isnt working for you then its not worth going to him no matter how highly respected he/she is
are you a visual learner? find a coach that takes vids
are you a feel player? find a coach that will work with you
changing your swing is going to be uncomfortable... its supposed to be
its obvious you wanna get better or you wouldnt be taking lessons
but you have to realize that its not a quick fix thing that most ppl believe is gonna happen... unless youre already a scratch player
even tiger still takes "lessons"
stick with it for awhile unless you think your pro isnt working out or helping in the least

 

[Tadashi70]

Th best thing to do is to write down everything the teaching pro taught at the lesson that way if problems are creeping up, one look at the notes will clear it up. . .it's clearly not the teaching pro's fault if someone forgets their teachings

I understand that we are not made of money so long term lessons isn't always in the cards. But if you're just going to refer to notes, you may as well just read a golf mag.. The instructor sees things in a person swing and if he worth a salt he will fix one thing at a time. Because big fixes can screw one's swing up pretty bad.
Referring to notes can only go so far. So a long term teaching plan is usually the best way to go. A monthly visit is usually enough.
The beauty of hooking up with a 'player' that knows the swing. They can get you playing solid golf and usually do so while playing a round of golf with you.

 

[Mr. Satchmo]

I understand that we are not made of money so long term lessons isn't always in the cards. But if you're just going to refer to notes, you may as well just read a golf mag.. The instructor sees things in a person swing and if he worth a salt he will fix one thing at a time. Because big fixes can screw one's swing up pretty bad.
Referring to notes can only go so far. So a long term teaching plan is usually the best way to go. A monthly visit is usually enough.
The beauty of hooking up with a 'player' that knows the swing. They can get you playing solid golf and usually do so while playing a round of golf with you.

Yeah I understand that; what I'm saying is to write down the notes so if problems come up between lessons, one can remember what they were taught and work on them.

I would love to take monthly lessons! This season I took 6 of them and in between I'd refer to the notes so when I met up with my instructor I'd remember but yeah not working with an instructor and working on only notes will probably kill the swing

 

[GolferMahn]

its hard to find a good teaching pro. Seems like many of them don't get the concept of working with what is already there, but instead try to completely change a swing when they could tweak one movement for better results.

 

[Mulligan9111]

Th best thing to do is to write down everything the teaching pro taught at the lesson that way if problems are creeping up, one look at the notes will clear it up. . .it's clearly not the teaching pro's fault if someone forgets their teachings

Well that only works to an extent. Like with the OP, if ball position is out of whack, and it wasn't addressed by the teaching pro, then going over the notes won't really help at all.

In my situation, it was usually my posture that messed me up. I'd get into too much of an upright position at address, which just got me all out of sorts. So when I'm working on say, keeping my club outside of my hands on the back swing, it would feel a lot different when I'm standing upright versus having more spine angle. My swing would be a lot flatter when I start too far upright. I never realized I was standing too upright until my instructor saw me.

 

[Tadashi70]

its hard to find a good teaching pro. Seems like many of them don't get the concept of working with what is already there, but instead try to completely change a swing when they could tweak one movement for better results.

As a teacher of the golf swing, trust me when I tell you it's a two way street. Sometimes a persons swing needs to rebuilt from the ground up. And the student always fights the change. So it becomes a negative relationship. If students would learn to clear their minds and understand that they don't know what's wrong it would go a lot easier in some instances.

Now I do agree that there there are pros that don't listen with their eyes and jut try to jam everyone into the same mold. These guys are pretty easy to pick out. It's a process to find the right pro that will make it right for you. But once you do, visit them often.