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Wasting Time?

RayG

RayG

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Albatross 2024 Club
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If you were a PGA Teaching Pro, would it drive you nuts if a client shows up and goes on endlessly about ‘Tips’ he’s found on YouTube? And then, proceed to bring those videos up on the phone for you to see? You are paying at least 100 an hour for HIS knowledge and take 20 minutes of your time, basically ignoring his expertise. Then the rest of the 40 minutes is him essentially ignoring what you show him, or trying to.
 
I can see it being annoying for the pro but only because he/she might feel like they aren't creating value. For the most part seasoned pros will tell the student to focus on the taks at hand.
 
Paying someone $30-75 to review your YouTube history sounds silly to me. If someone thinks that is a good use of their limited time on the lesson tee more power to them I guess.
 
If you are willing to pay for that, then why wouldn't they accept it.
Would it be annoying for the instructor? Maybe. I think it would be a good opportunity to explain to someone why it is or isn't great, and what the results of everything could be.

Do I pay $125/hr for a lesson, and then watch YouTube things on the exact thing I just had a lesson on?

Pop Tv Idk GIF by Schitt's Creek
 
It would be annoying, but if they're paying me $100 an hour to watch YouTube videos I'd happily take their money. :ROFLMAO:
 
I have been an instructor at my workplace for over 20 years. I have taught a ton of classes to a lot of people who think they are smarter than me and some that are in another stratosphere of knowledge. I learned early on to let folks get there soapbox moment of how they understand a topic so I can see if I can learn from them. They almost always get the fine details wrong but it has helped me to correct them and do it in a way to speak their language. I think the same is true for golf lessons. If someone is bringing a video in to their instructor of how they understand something a good instructor can adapt and speak in the same language that they understand it.
 
ANNOUNCEMENT: For the low low price of $99/hr I am available to hop on a zoom call and you can show me all the YouTube golf lessons you want and then we can talk about it.
 
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I can see the reviews now: "Three stars, He/She wouldn't listen to my suggestions on how they should be teaching. Ignored my repeated attempts to show YouTube videos of what I already know would work for me..."
 
If I were the instructor, and the student wanted to pay me, to listen to him, I wouldn't have problem with it. Who knows, I might learn something new I could use. It's his money, and his time.
 
I will bring up drills at the end if I need clarification on what would work. We’ve been searching for “fixes” since forever. I would say it’s no different than reading tips and tricks from Golf Digest back in the day and doing the same. Pros have probably been dealing with this to an extent for awhile. But yeah, I’d be annoyed.
 
If the client is willing to pay me to watch YouTube and then tell them if those tips are good and will work, then I’m gonna take the money and run. He won’t be loyal so to speak to what I’m going to teach him, but that just means I don’t have to spend as much energy on him.

Sounds like it’s time to click away haha
 
Yeah, this is more of a reveal about the client than the pro.

This happens BTW in all kinds of contexts. It does drive true professionals nuts because they have learned to be concise and clear in their communication to be effective at what they do. Please note my qualifier *true* professionals.

To bring it back to this context, when I see a golf teacher who has diarrhea of the mouth, the guy or gal who talks his/her student to death throughout the whole lesson time, I know to run in the other direction. When I see a student do this, I am less critical, because my expectations are lower. But I also know they aren't going to be a great student.
 
The classic question after someone does this: "And how is that working for you?"
 
I would just turn round and say if those videos are that good then why are you coming to see me then

It's easy money for sure if that happens but you don't want your name took through mud because all that will happen is, when they aren't playing good they will turn round and say I got a lesson from XYZ and clearly isn't good
 
I'm not sure how reliable "tips" can be. I've yet to meet a golfer who said his game changed for the better because of some tip he read in a magazine or on the Internet.
 
Look at all the people who scour these online instructional golf forums for that one magic tip. And some have even had one on one lessons from some of the top teachers in the world. But yet still search the internet for help. So what does that say about golf teaching in general? 🤔. If teachers were really helping students get better than they wouldn’t be searching for that one special tip. So if I was an instructor that had someone coming in with YouTube golf lesson addiction. I would work even harder to figure out where the disconnect is in their learning process

But on the other hand. This guy learned from searching YouTube. And I guess he isn’t that bad of a golfer
www.dailymail.co.uk

Ryder Cup star Viktor Hovland taught himself how to play golf online

When Viktor Hovland steps onto the hallowed turf at Whistling Straits, he will make history as the first Norwegian to play at the Ryder Cup. He is also the first player to teach himself golf from scratch online.
www.dailymail.co.uk
 
Is this a one hour lesson? I don’t think we’ll even have time to watch youtube videos. We have a lot of memes to get through first.
 
Sometimes you have to fire a customer.
 
Sean said:
I'm not sure how reliable "tips" can be. I've yet to meet a golfer who said his game changed for the better because of some tip he read in a magazine or on the Internet.
Click to expand...

I place 'tips' into two basic camps- goal tips and objective tips- with a tip's source being a key element.
 
hackitup said:
I will bring up drills at the end if I need clarification on what would work. We’ve been searching for “fixes” since forever. I would say it’s no different than reading tips and tricks from Golf Digest back in the day and doing the same. Pros have probably been dealing with this to an extent for awhile. But yeah, I’d be annoyed.
Click to expand...

Reading instructional articles from Golf Digest was basically how I learned to play the game. Of course, this was WAYYYY back in the day when GD was still a magazine that was actually worth reading! I also received a little bit of instruction from an Uncle who was a "country club pro" back in his day. But we lived fairly far apart and didn't get to see each other very often. I was pretty quick to discard ideas that didn't work for me, but I definitely remember an article that did work! Nicklaus was a "player/editor" for GD, one of the reasons that I subscribed, and it featured a diagram of Nicklaus' foot placement, ball location, and his distance from the ball for every club in his bag.

I took that magazine to the range along with a yardstick and tape measure. The first thing it showed me was that I was standing much too far away from the ball! This began my journey into actually playing well.
Sean said:
I'm not sure how reliable "tips" can be. I've yet to meet a golfer who said his game changed for the better because of some tip he read in a magazine or on the Internet.
Click to expand...

I think that how much help a "tip" can be depends upon the state of the game of the "tipee". I've given just a few tips in my golfing life, and the only reason I did so was because I could clearly see what was happening, and the disappointment of the golfer to their mistake was so obvious! So, I would ask if I might help. Here's a case in point.

My main golf buddy and I were actually paired with a couple of women by the starter. The course was really crowded and he was trying to group people together however he could. He reassured us that they played there all the time and wouldn't hold us up. One of the women was hitting her irons very nicely, but was having trouble with her Driver. She was hanging onto it like grim death, not releasing the clubhead, hitting weak little pop-ups out to the right. After one such tee shot, her shoulders slumped and she kind of plodded back to their cart. That's when I spoke up and asked if she would give me permission to give her some advice. She agreed, even inviting me up on the next tee with her to watch. She cracked a nice drive down the middle for good distance. She kept that up for the rest of the round.

At the end we were saying goodbye and she grabbed me, gave me a peck on the cheek, and thanked me for helping her. I have to say that felt pretty doggone good!
 
If It was me I would consider it free money But at some point I might have a conversation about why they are paying me for lessons.
 
Stupid ain’t cheap. It’s a gold mine for the Pro. Keep undoing what we’re working on and keep cutting checks.
 
This is perfectly timed for me. I setup a lesson to see where my swing is and tweak a few swing mechanics that I'm not sure about. A few of the things I'm trying came from youtube, but they're variations on things my pro has told me to try or things we've already worked on.

So I'm going into the lesson with a few specific questions, but I would never pull up a YouTube video and waste his time.
 
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