Golf Instruction — Using your time wisely.

Time seems to be the big issue these days. According to the trade pubs, that’s why the golf industry is in a funk… because no one has Time for a 6-hour round of golf these days.

But pace of play isn’t the only culprit here. What about the pace of learning? PGA teaching pros waste tremendous amounts of Time feeding us information we don’t need.  Obsessing over mechanics we’ll never understand. And starting us on a merry-go-round of experimentation that never goes anywhere.

No wonder golf has such a high attrition rate. Most of the lessons we take do more harm than good.

Thankfully, there are some notable exceptions.

On Saturday I spent some Time on the driving range with my friend Andy Heinly. He’s a PGA Pro & Henry-Griffitts clubfitter. My go-to guy for anything that ails my game. He once again demonstrated how simple and efficient teaching can be.

Andy has a gift for getting to the heart of a student’s problem, and it’s almost always grip, aim or stance. For him, every lesson starts with a simple check of those three critical elements.

He doesn’t address swing mechanics when the student’s aiming 10 yards to the right with a wedge in his hands. It’s a waste of Time.

Unfortunately, most instructors miss — or purposely skip — those basic steps. Maybe it’s just too boring for them, or maybe they’re just too fixated on the mechanics of the “perfect” golf swing. I don’t know.

Here’s what I do know:

The video lesson I had a couple summers ago, where a big-name pro compared my swing to Adam Scott’s, was a total waste of my Time. I already knew that Adam Scott’s swing was prettier than mine. I didn’t need to spend Time and $150 bucks to be reminded of that.

I know that experimenting with all those tips we read in the magazines is a waste of Time. For every little fix that I accomplish, three more faults pop up.

I know that hitting balls without some sort of purpose is also a waste of Time. That’s why I turn to Andy for direction.

I know that I’m hitting the ball dramatically better than I was before my session with Andy. And I only had to spend 10 minutes with him.

If I choose to tee it up on a busy Saturday and spend 6 hours playing 18 holes, that’s my choice. And it’s only one day. But if an instructor messes up my game, that’s months of Time and frustration. That’s the time sucker that really irritates me!

The PGA of America needs a better training program for teaching pros. They need some kind of systematic effort and quality control program that will streamline the process and eliminate a lot of the nonsense that wastes our Time. Until that happens — and club pros learn to teach more like Andy teaches — this game will continue to struggle. And so will most players.

Besides, where do you think 6-hour rounds came from?  It’s all those people trying to remember all those things they  picked up on TV or “learned” in their last lesson. Forget-About-It!

Tags: Andy Heinly, golf lessons, perfect golf swing, swing mechanics