I’ve been coaching golf for some time now and the one thing that is most challenging is figuring out the most effective way to coach someone – everyone is different. By far the easiest group I work with is juniors – from the ages of 10 to 17. The reason why is their minds have not been filled with a lot of information. They’re not constantly watching the golf channel or reading golf instruction books and magazine. So when they come to me I’m more or less working with a blank slate. It’s amazing how simple my approach is with juniors. I focus on setup, then getting them to learn how to move the club, while understanding the relationship of the club and ball by reading their ball flight. And amazing things happen with these juniors.

Most adults are completely different. As we evolve intellectually many of us have the tendency to analyze everything we do. I know I’m an analytical thinker. Unfortunately, this type of thinking, when it comes to learning any motor skills, especially golf, is arguably the least effective way to learn the game and to make progress. And I get these types of thinkers all the time – they’re worried about keeping their head down, where is their elbow at the top, starting to move and clear their hips on the downswing – the list goes on and on and on.

Over time what I’ve come to realize is that as much as I want to – I can’t change that. As much as I want to use the same simple approach with juniors, the one that focuses on how we learn all physical activities, it’s just not enough for an analytical thinker. So I need to make a compromise – I give them a little of what they want and A LOT of what they need. What furthers the challenge is that many of their swing thoughts are burned in their belief system. They think if they keep their head down, which is more detrimental than helpful, they will hit a good shot. So I spend a good deal of time, trying to convince them of why their ideas are not really helping, but rather hurting them, or if possible, reshape the idea so that I can get them to use it in a positive way.

The ironic thing is that giving them a lot of what they need is not necessarily a lot of information. In fact, it’s more like pulling the thoughts out of their brains, throwing them in them in the garbage, and then reshaping and inserting the most effective approaches that will help the student. Coaching golf will always be a challenge, because how each student thinks, what the current shape of their swing, their physical limitations and desire to improve, vary greatly from student to student and therefore each approach has to be different.

As a Head Golf Professional at a club that has many tournaments, I’m very actively involved in marking the golf course, making local rules, and refereeing those tournaments. I’ve been asked my opinion on the ruling at the PGA Championship.

First, there’s no doubt that Johnston grounded his club for that shot, and I had no idea that Johnston was standing in a bunker when he hit his approach shot on #18 – it looked like he was hitting from a sandy, trampled down part of the course, along with the fact that spectators were standing in this so-called “bunker” and here-in is where the question really lies. There’s no doubt that he was hitting from sand, what might be considered a “waste bunker”. These areas are usually played as part of the course, not a hazard, and a player is permitted to ground his club. However, in the supplementary rules given to the players stated that “all bunkers” would be played as hazards, a rule that was made due to an incident with Stuart Appleby the last time the event was played at Whistling Straits.

Anyway, and of course in hindsight, this is where I think the PGA erred. Hazards need to be defined very clearly by a clean edge, something that is very easy to see in a “normal” bunker, and with water the boundaries are clearly defined by paint (yellow or red). So the problem I have with the way these bunkers were defined, are not really definable  – the edges are part sand and part grass thereby leaving the beginnings and ends of the hazard subjective to whether the player is in or out of the hazard –so I don’t believed they should be marked as such.  Of course the responsibility of knowing the rules lies with the player and the PGA did notify the players of this ruling.

However, the part that doesn’t really seem right along with declaring these areas hazards, is that PGA allowed the spectators to walk and stand in these bunkers. On top of it the Marshalls allowed the spectators to be in the bunker that Johnson was hitting from, thereby making this so-called bunker look like a trampled down area that was created by the spectators (Johnson’s ball was way off line and a good distance from the fairway.) Also, if you are going to have such a rule, there is a rules official with each group and just as is the case when any ball is in a hazard the official is close by to notify the player of his options. In this case the official could have notified Johnson that he was in the bunker.

In the end, I think it’s the fault of the PGA for ruling those waste bunkers as regular hazards and in this case, an area surrounded by spectators standing in it, led Johnson to never think he was in a bunker – did you think he was in a bunker?  Going forward, when an event returns to Whistling Straits, I believe they will again mark these areas as waste bunkers.

Of course none of this matters to Johnson, who I thought took this punishment like a great sportsman, and who lost his opportunity to win his first major championship. As he said the only thing that could have made it worse was that he made that putt on 18, and thought he won the championship. At times the Rules of Golf, which are supposed to be there “to help a player”, at times, can be very cruel.

As I continue to share the hockey learning experience with my son, I’m watching closely on how he learns and how I help him learn to do things.

Along with us skating together, we also play some foot hockey with a ball in the driveway. So my son has been hitting slap shots, but all of them roll, with some speed, along the ground. So last week I started telling him at he needed to start seeing if he can start hitting the ball up into the upper parts of the net (he know what that is as he does it on his NHL 10 PS game). 

So we went out the other night and he was hitting slap shots and I was standing on the side of the net stopping his shots that were rolling on the ground. So I asked him to try and hit the shots higher and see if he could hit the middle of the net – but he struggled and couldn’t do it.

So I took the opportunity to try to help him. I moved his lowered hand so that it was lower on the stick to help him get more power, than I took his stick and tilted the face of the stick slightly toward the ground and asked him if I hit a shot like that what would the ball do, and he responded it would go along the ground. I then turned the face of the stick toward the sky and asked if I hit a shot with the stick like that what where would the ball go, and he responded it would go in the air. So said let’s try and hit some shots with the stick looking like that.  Well within three shots he starting getting the ball up in the air and within 10 shots he was hitting them in the upper part of the net, with one of the shots hitting the crossbar. He was very excited about his progress – as was I.

The moral of the story is the same. When you’re playing a stick and ball game, which is essentially what golf is, once the student learns the relationship with golf club and how it impacts the flight of the ball, he or she can then start experimenting to make the ball do something different then it currently does when the student hits it – it’s what the learning experience is all about.

This works well with kids, but many times this approach is a struggle for adults, because as we mature intellectually many individuals what more information. We want more details, about how the body moves and so on, which more times than not, while the answers make the student feel better as they feel they understand it more, in actually slows down their learning process and the potential progress they can make.

At the age of 8, my son Quinten has finally chosen a sport, with prior activities limited to PlayStation and the computer. This is very exciting – the downside is he could have picked golf, which would have been virtually free, but instead chose ice hockey, arguably the most expensive sport.

Watching him learn to skate – he’s only been on skates four times – has been an interesting experience, as he is learning a new motor skill. But what has been just as interesting is I have been skating with him. Skating for me is not a new activity, since I grew up with golf and ice hockey, my brother going to college for hockey and me for golf. And considering that I haven’t been on skates in probably 20 years, I can still get around okay. But my challenge has been that I can skate fairly well forwards, in a counter-clockwise direction, and backwards in a clockwise direction. So as my son is learning, I’m working on practicing and developing the skills that I don’t as well. So it’s not that I can skate in the opposite direction, but rather it is kind of new, and very awkward.

So how do I approach it? Well, just like I recommend golfers making changes in their golf swing. I start with small steps at a slow speed, and then build up the speed until I reach the point where I start to lose control, then to slow down. It’s the same as I learn guitar – I start slow until I develop the pattern, then work up to a speed where I start to lose control, then back down the speed. In learning new or improving all motor skills, the way humans learn is to do things slowly and small, then work up to the desired speed or results, just as when learning or changing something in your golf swing. If you can’t create a good impact position when you chip or pitch the ball (small swings), how can you possibly create a good impact position in a full swing at full speed? It’s the same thing with working on changing the sequence in your full swing – you should try taking a lot of practice swings, then start hitting making full swings, at say 50% speed – say a five iron at 75 yards. Then continue to “dial” up the speed, while incorporating the new change until you reach a speed that you lose control, then back it down and build it up. 

 All humans naturally approach learning or improving a motor skill in the same way. This is the way we are built, so it only makes sense to use the same approach with golf.

More times than not, making adjustments and changes to your golf swing, after doing it a certain way, can be uncomfortable to say the least. One of the most fundamental changes I try to make with students, and one of the hardest, is a grip adjustment. And generally speaking, no matter how little the change, it seems to be one of the greatest challenges for golfers. But the grip is a very important fundamental as it has the most influence on the clubface at impact, which determines how well you can control the direction of your golf ball. And while the grip is negotiable, it does mean you can hold it anyway you want, the important thing is to find the MOST effective way for you to hold it.

I learned the challenge of making the change recently with my guitar playing. I was holding the pick in a relatively unorthodox way, one that still allowed me to be able to play, but I didn’t feel like I had the maximum amount of control of the pick that I could. It’s similar to golfers who hold their club, with their left hand (right-handed golfer), too much in the palm. Evidence of this usually is the wearing out of the glove, but more importantly while you can hit good shots with the club in your palm, you will have more control of the club if it’s more in your fingers (with both hands) and very possibly better control of your ball flight.

But change is sometimes very challenging. I have been playing guitar for awhile now with a certain grip, and then tried to make the change and while I could play a little with the new grip, my playing took a little step backwards – the improvement was not seen immediately. But I stuck with it and after a couple of weeks I really started to see some speed and control movement in my playing.

The thing is, provided that you know that a change you are making is going to be more effective, you need to have a certain level of stick-to-it-iveness to make a change. But if you do persevere, and it may take some time, you will be rewarded.

Every golf tournament I watch, it’s inevitable and only a matter of time, before one of the broadcasters, whoever is the “expert’ on the golf swing, will say something about a player’s missed shots or even the positive analysis of a player’s swing, to make me so mad I want to throw my drink at the TV. There are two problems here -one is that damn “Biz-Cam” that does video playback at 1 zillion frames per second. The other is commentators that don’t know much or anything about the golf swing.

The combination of these two things can cause disaster for the average golfer. Breaking down great player’s motions at that speed inevitably leads to over analysis, and to be honest, analysis sometimes I don’t even understand. But that’s easy to do – if you watch something that’s in SUPER slow-motion it’s simple to go “look at this” and “look at that”. Soon they’ll be talking about Tigers right pinky and how it moves in the golf swing – and you should be doing that. To me, the most infuriating thing is when a player misses a shot and they go right to the video playback, then someone offers the reason that the shot was missed. And comments by former tour players (with exception to maybe Nick Faldo) are worse than the swing analysts, because honestly, just because you can play doesn’t mean you know about the golf swing – it just means you can play.

At least the guys that are instructors are fairly knowledgeable, and in their defense, many times I think they need to fill in dead space and constantly offer explanations for why a guy with 130 mile an hour clubhead speed missed a fairway by 15 yards – maybe it was just the clubface was slightly open at impact? At that speed it doesn’t take much to cause the ball to go offline. But that would be boring after awhile, so there’s the need to look at how the hips are rotating and stopping, the shoulders are moving to slow or too open, the hands are not “releasing”, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile anyone who knows about video playback also knows that if you put two swings up on the screen side by side, many times it’s very difficult to see the minute differences between the swing of a good shot and a bad one. But this doesn’t stop them – and maybe it can’t. If they want to keep their jobs, the swing commentators need to offer an analysis to the reasons why – even if those reasons are inaccurate. Now I’m suggesting they are not sincere in the analysis, I’m suggesting they’re pressured to say something and fill in the blanks.

Now if this sounded like a rant…well, it was. And it’s not because I think they know nothing and I know everything, but rather because golfers listen to them, because they are “experts” in the golf swing. They are like talking magazines, or Golf Channel shows, that offer tidbits of information, more times than not unrelated to the listener’s golf swings. This just continues this cycle of passing around bad information and confusion that circulates with golfers, and eventually they come and see me. So I guess I shouldn’t complain too much about the swing analysts, I think they might be helping to keep me in business.

Many times golfers come to me complaining that they “can’t put two nines together” – they either play a good front nine and poor back nine, or a bad front nine and a good back nine. Golf is a fickle game, and on any given day that just may happen, but if you start to see a pattern of this occurring, it’s probably something you might want to take a closer look at. My opinion for this is that golfer’s are too focused on their score – a problem for nearly all of us that play this game.

Golfers may start out poorly on the first few holes, get discouraged then play poorly for the rest of the front nine. Then they add up their score for the front nine, realizing that if they shoot the same on the back it will be a poor round.  They then begin to relax and “not really care” and end up playing much better on the back nine. The opposite occurs (good front, bad back) for a different reason. A player gets in the zone on the front and starts really playing well. While making the turn, he or his playing partners add up his score for the front nine and the player realizes how well he is doing.

Then comes the kiss of death – he thinks “if I shoot the same number on the back” I’ll have my best score, or I’ll break 90 or 80, etc. Putting more self-imposed pressure on himself (all pressure in golf is self-imposed); he plays poorly on the back, and “ruins” what could have been a great round.

The moral of the story is, don’t constantly add your score up in your mind. That’s why you always hear tour players, when interviewed about how they feel about tomorrow, with a chance to win the tournament, they respond “I’m going to focus on one shot at time” – they are focusing on staying in the present, not thinking about what happened in the past, or what could happen in the future. It’s an easy thing to say and intellectualize, but a challenge to incorporate into your mental game. But when you do, you’ll be surprised at how well you can play with that mindset.

The primary reason that golfers have the most challenge controlling their driver, versus the other clubs in the bag – is simple physics – the clubhead is traveling faster, there is less loft, and more sidespin. The combination of these factors simply magnifies any curvature with the golf ball’s flight.

But I’d like to offer another possible reason for the erratic drive – the driver has no limits or boundaries. In other words think about a comfortable distance, for an approach shot to the green, that you hit an iron. Let’s say you hit a 7 iron 150 yards. It’s a comfortable distance for you with the iron and all it requires is a smooth swing to make the ball go 150 yards. But now let’s say you’re between a 7 iron and a 6 iron so you try to “jump” on the 7 and hit it as far as you can. More times than not you probably find that the shot does not come off the way you intended, which is why many times you’ll take the longer club and swing smoother.

Now let’s move to the tee shot and let’s say it’s a short hole and you don’t need a driver so you decide to play conservatively, and hit a 5 wood (metal). So you hit a smooth 5 wood because you don’t need the distance, and put it out in the middle of the fairway – your normal 190 yard shot.

Now let’s look at your driver. How far do you hit? Generally when I ask golfers this question they’ll give me the old “range”, for example “220 to 230”. But do you swing the club in that range, whatever that range is? In other words, are you trying to hit the ball, in this example, 220 – 230 yards? Or are you like most golfers trying to hit the ball as far as you can? And when you blast one right up the middle, its fun and can impress your foursome, but more often, erratic shots occur more than the killer one up the middle.

I have to confess that I also suffer from this syndrome. With normal playing conditions, and a comfortable smooth swing, my range is 260-270. That’s it unless I catch one downwind, on a down slope, or very hard fairways. So what I try to think about before I hit my driver is to make a smooth swing and focus on hitting my drive 260 yards – no more than that. When I do this I hit more 260 yard drives in the fairway. When I don’t I find the trees much more frequently or other undesirable spots on the golf course.

Another explanation for this syndrome could be I’m a man and my testosterone levels get in the way.

The primary reason that golfers have the most challenge controlling their driver, versus the other clubs in the bag – is simple physics – the clubhead is traveling faster, there is less loft, and more sidespin. The combination of these factors simply magnifies any curvature with the golf ball’s flight.

But I’d like to offer another possible reason for the erratic drive – the driver has no limits or boundaries. In other words think about a comfortable distance, for an approach shot to the green, that you hit an iron. Let’s say you hit a 7 iron 150 yards. It’s a comfortable distance for you with the iron and all it requires is a smooth swing to make the ball go 150 yards. But now let’s say you’re between a 7 iron and a 6 iron so you try to “jump” on the 7 and hit it as far as you can. More times than not you probably find that the shot does not come off the way you intended, which is why many times you’ll take the longer club and swing smoother.

Now let’s move to the tee shot and let’s say it’s a short hole and you don’t need a driver so you decide to play conservatively, and hit a 5 wood (metal). So you hit a smooth 5 wood because you don’t need the distance, and put it out in the middle of the fairway – your normal 190 yard shot.

Now let’s look at your driver. How far do you hit? Generally when I ask golfers this question they’ll give me the old “range”, for example “220 to 230”. But do you swing the club in that range, whatever that range is? In other words, are you trying to hit the ball, in this example, 220 – 230 yards? Or are you like most golfers trying to hit the ball as far as you can? And when you blast one right up the middle, its fun and can impress your foursome, but more often, erratic shots occur more than the killer one up the middle.

I have to confess that I also suffer from this syndrome. With normal playing conditions, and a comfortable smooth swing, my range is 260-270. That’s it unless I catch one downwind, on a down slope, or very hard fairways. So what I try to think about before I hit my driver is to make a smooth swing and focus on hitting my drive 260 yards – no more than that. When I do this I hit more 260 yard drives in the fairway. When I don’t I find the trees much more frequently or other undesirable spots on the golf course.

Another explanation for this syndrome could be I’m a man and my testosterone levels get in the way.

Over the years I’ve been fortunate to work with several talented collegiate players and many junior golfers (ages 13 – 18). One of the biggest challenges I face with coaching these juniors are their parents. The parents always mean well, and many try to coach the juniors themselves. This should be left to golf professionals, which is a separate topic in and of itself. But the challenge I face is that the parent is giving their own lessons to the students that I’m coaching. I’ll sometimes overhear the parents coaching (many times in a firm tone of voice) ideas and suggestions different than mine.

Obviously this is nothing new, and there is no way I can stop it. But it can be VERY destructive for the student, because they are getting, more times than not, too much instruction, conflicting ideas, and much of what comes from that source is uneducated and ineffective – in other words it gets in the way of the student’s progress. What I try to do, provided the junior is comfortable with it, I invite the father, mother, uncle, or whoever is the person that spends the most “golf time” with the junior, to the lesson. What this allows me to do is make certain that the adult understands what I’m trying to accomplish with the student and he/she can actually act as a “second set of eyes” when the junior is practicing or playing. It also helps me emphasize, to the adult, the areas where the focus needs to be and to not introduce any other ideas.

If you’re a parent, trust in your coach to guide your child, and try to stay out of the way. I know you mean well and are just trying to help, but if you are giving advice that is different than the coach it’s not going to be helpful. Or if you don’t like the progress you and your child are seeing with the coach, you might want to consider finding another one.