Open Letter to Teaching Golf Pros

I wanted to take some time to address teaching golf pros and help them help us. The teaching golf pro is the one who pulls our swing back from the abyss. Through analysis and analogy, they help us renew our love of golf through seeing a well struck shot. There is one area I would like to suggest an adjustment to a common teaching style. If you are a teaching golf pro and do not do this, cool.

Adjust Teaching Style

Dear Teaching Golf Pros,

As one of the countless golfers that has come to you for lessons to fix my game. I would like to thank you for your aid in recalibrating my swing. Despite my best efforts to self diagnose, I could not fix myself so I swallowed my pride and requested your expertise. Thanks to your insight, knowledge, and training, I learned how to correct bad habits and swing purely.

I would like to make a suggestion to a common teaching style to better help the individual golfer. With the proliferation of video training systems, many pros like to compare side by side video of our swing to professional golfers. I understand the principle behind the process of showing us the pinnacle of golf swing as the goal. We can see where we bleed power in our swing compared to pros who can hit a sand wedge 130 yards while I barely reach 60 yards.

The teaching golf pro that will excel in the modern age is the one who recognizes that casual golfer may not be able to physically replicate a pros swing. With the average golfer getting older, teaching golf pros need to recognize these aging golfers have lost flexibility and/or mobility. Swing technique may call for a deeper back rotation that the student cannot comply with due to fused disks. Or aging knees cannot drive down to the target over and over through 18 holes.

Our goal is not to go pro at this stage of our lives. We want to hit the fairway 230 yards off the tee and work our way forward one shot at a time.

The challenge I put forth is to study body movement and how to adjust a golf swing once a joint becomes a hinderance. We are not peak physical specimens but we are golfers. Work with what we give you. To Pro who can unlock each golfer’s potential with what they bring will help elevate the love for golf.

Thank you to all the teaching golf pros working in the sun to fix our power fades. Keep up the good work.