Everyone knows a beginner should get golf lessons, golf is a demanding sport, but it becomes more challenging when you teach yourself the wrong things as a lot of beginners do.
If you have lessons with qualified PGA professional, this stop mistakes before they happen. Here are the 11 reasons why golf lessons transform your game.
- Get Professional Advice
- Focus On All Aspects Of Your Game
- Improve Your Mental Strength
- You Constantly Improve
- Improve Your Swing Technique
- Learn Course Management
- Prevent Bad Habits
- Develop A Strong Putting Game
- .Work On Your Short Game
- Improve Your Bunker Game
- Learn Your Handicap
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1.Professional Advice
A lot of people think golf lessons are too expensive for what they’re worth. And yes, it’s a fact that golf lessons are costly. But they are incredibly worthwhile for the service you’re getting. There is no better way to improve at anything than by getting professional help.
Looking to score lower rounds, hit the ball sweeter, and ultimately improve your swing? The best way to get better is by consulting a professional. Most golf coaches know the game better than they do the back of their hand. They can immediately spot the problems in your swing and tell you directly how you can improve your game to score lower rounds.
Instead of relying on youtube tutorials or perhaps even your friends at the driving range, golf pros are both a reliable and trustworthy source of information that will coach bad habits.
Being self-taught is cheap, but it is risky. Self-taught players are prone to developing bad techniques, and even having a qualified eye looking at your swing or the odd tune-up session with a golf coach can help you hit the ball longer, straighter, and sweeter. Make sure to check out our discussion on whether hiring a coach is better than being self-taught here.
The other great thing about hiring a PGA people and approved coach is that you’ll know you’re going to be getting the right advice to improve your game. And although golf lessons aren’t cheap, paying for professional advice ensures you will get what’s best for your game.
2.Focus On All Aspects Of Your Game
A lot of self-taught players will go to the range and work only one aspect of their game. But that’s nonsensical if you’re looking to shoot lower cards. The key to becoming a good golfer is well-rounded with each of the 14 clubs in your bag. That means you need to work equally on your chipping, putting, driving, and approach play to ensure you can get yourself out of any situation you find yourself on the course.
Having lessons is one of the only sure-fire ways to ensure that you work on each aspect of your game.
Golf coaches will encourage you to work on the least good part of your game, which can seem like a pain because no one likes working on something they struggle with. All the same, though, they’ll provide that motivation for you to keep working on that 5-iron you’ve been struggling to hit the last time you were on the course.
Your coach will also provide you with drills and session plans to help you ensure you spend enough time working on each club. It’s that sort of motivation and training advice you won’t get if you were self-taught.
3. Improve Your Mental Strength
Speaking of motivation, many will underestimate the mental coaching having golf lessons will give you. 18-time major champion Jack Niklaus once quipped, “The game of golf is 90% mental and 10% physical.” You could have a drive better than Dustin Johnson and a putting game better than Jordan Speith, but there’s no point in having either of those if you buckle under the mental pressure of a tough shot.
Having lessons can help you find techniques on how to stay calm under that pressure and enjoy your round instead of getting frustrated with your golf. I know plenty of golf coaches who spend a lot of time with their clients, working on keeping their calm when they’re in a tricky situation on the course.
Remember, your coach will have played hundreds of rounds of golf before and will have undoubtedly gone through the ups and downs and frustrations you might be going through at that time. They’re there to help you develop that golfing mental resilience and overcome those hurdles.
4. You Constantly Improve
The good thing about having golf lessons is that they build structure in your golf game. That means constant improvement. The problem most golfers have is they might take one or two classes, improve their game a little, and then forget everything they’ve been taught. As soon as you stop taking lessons, you’ll start to develop bad habits.
Although, we’re not suggesting you should be taking lessons once a week for the rest of your golf career. That’s excessive. Once every couple of months is enough, and if you start to become more confident as a golfer, perhaps then maybe once a year for a quick swing check-up. Check out our guide on how many lessons a beginner golfer needs here.
5 . Improve Your Swing Technique
Next comes the swing technique. Your average golf coach has studied thousands of golfing actions in their careers, and that makes them the best people to help you get your club in the proper position at the right time. Taking lessons will improve your swing, but the golf coach’s adjustments will improve your swing and make your shots feel better when you hit them.
Golf coaches can also use the latest equipment like trackman technology, swing recorders, and specially weighted club aids to help you visualize how you can perfect your swing. Using this equipment is firstly very expensive, so most would typically not get to use it outside of a lesson, and it’ll give you more significant insights on how you can alter your swing to connect with the ball better.
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And while we’re on the subject of ball striking, I can safely say that 99% of amateur golfers have all at some stage struggled with their ball striking, either topping the ball or hitting fat shots.
Both issues are hard to correct, but that’s where a quick one-on-one session with a coach can seriously put you back to hitting it flush. From adjusting your stance to slowing down your backswing, a coach can, in one lesson, correct what you’ve been struggling with during the last three rounds you’ve played.
Many don’t realize that a golf coach will also follow you around a course. That’s where I found my coach the most useful. Acting as a coaching caddy, your instructor will be able to give you real-time tips as you navigate 18 holes.
This is some of the most invaluable coaching advice you’ll receive because instead of hitting vanilla golf shots on the range, you’ll have the opportunity to work with your coach to understand how to hit golfballs in different lies, how to avoid traps on the course and work on gauging your distances better.
As much as hitting the ball long and straight can save you shots, a lot of beginners don’t realize that that’s only half of the game. Having someone with experience walk you around the course and share their insights into how they’d play a particular shot is almost invaluable. Even if you think you’ve got a lot of experience playing golf, you’ll be surprised what the pros can teach you if you play 18 holes with them.
Although practicing indoors can allow you to play in any weather or at any time (check out our guide on indoor vs. outdoor golf), it’s always better to get a feel for playing outdoors on a real-life golf course to help you improve the course management aspects of your game.
7. Prevent Bad Habits
Whether you’re self-taught or you’ve had a couple of lessons in the past, bad habits can creep into anyone’s game. Even the pros have patterns that some coaches would consider undesirable. Take Bryson DeChambeau’s odd putting technique, for example. Some might argue that if the unusual approach helps you score low cards, and win the US Open, as DeChambeau did last, maybe having a little bit of lousy technique is fine.
But the majority of the time, that’s not the case. Most golfers will develop an array of bad habits throughout their golfing careers. And that’s normal, but that’s also why it’s essential to get lessons. After a series of golf lessons, a coach can see the undesirable actions you have in your swing and gradually correct those actions to help you improve your connection to the ball.
One bad habit is gripping the club too tightly, this reduces the power you can generate in the golf swing and increases the wear and tear on your gloves. For a complete guide on how to clean how to keep your gloves looking fresh see our guide.
8.Develop A Strong Putting Game
Putting is where a lot of shots can be lost and saved on the course. It is one of the most frustrating parts of golf, and if you can get your putting game right, you’ll see your handicap drop massively. But many players overlook their putting, just because, well, how hard can tapping a ball into a hole be, right?
A coach must analyze your putting. You’ll be astonished at how a coach can pick apart your putt, from your weight distribution over the ball to your connection on the shot. It will feel very unnatural at first, but you’ll soon start to see yourself sync those putts that you weren’t before.
One other point to note is most golfers staggeringly don’t know how to read a green properly. And reading a green isn’t as hard as you think. After a few lessons with a putting coach, you’ll be able to tell your left to rights from your right to lefts and how much pace you need to put on a putt depending on the angle, lie, and elevation of the shot. Putting lessons is a must if you’re looking to improve your game.
9.Work On Your Short Game
This is another part of the game many overlook. Spending more time practicing your pitching and approach play will help you improve your score. When it comes to chipping around the greens, coaches can help you perfect the different styles of each chip shot. From bump and runs to a high flop shot, having a coach help you build up this arsenal of approach shots will help you get out of a ton of tricky situations around the greens.
The short game is all about technique. And that’s why having an instructor walk you through your pitching can be so valuable. Many players don’t realize that you need to lean forward with your hands in front of the ball when playing a chip shot.
Coaches often find people leaning back on a flop shot as that’s naturally how you think you’d get more height and spin on the shot. But that’s wrong, and that’s why having a coach to help you work on the technique in your short game can help you become a better golfer.
So you know you need to have golf lessons, but exactly how many lessons should a beginner golfer take? Learn the facts in our article.
10.Improve Your Bunker Play
Because how often when you go to the range do you work from the practice bunker? For me and most other amateurs, rarely!
Playing from the sand can be one of the most challenging and most costly parts of golf, and that’s why you need to commit time to practice from the sand. It’s also essential to learn how to hit shots from the sand properly, and there are many unique tips and tricks you can learn from a golf coach on how to get the ball to pop up and out from the sand.
From striking the sand before the ball to turning your stance more side on to get height, a couple of lessons with a coach in a practice bunker will give you a better idea of how to get out of one of golf’s most dangerous traps.
11.Learn Your Handicap
Ever tried to work out your handicap? It’s a nightmare. Thankfully golf coaches can do that for you, and as an accredited PGA tour pro, they will produce an R&A and USGA-approved handicap for you.
That’s very important because if you’re looking to play in competitions or at some of the best courses in the world, it’s likely you’ll be asked to present an approved handicap card which can be very difficult to acquire if you’re not already a member of a golf club. And particularly with the new and very complicated World Handicap System rules and regulations on how to submit your scorecards, having professionals take care of the leg work is extremely handy.
Your golf coach will also help you set your handicap towards your goals, which means it’s sometimes better to use them over a golf club. They’ll know how you play, what you want to achieve in the game, and will play with you on your handicap scoring rounds to help you calculate the correct handicap for your level. They can even reduce your handicap for you if you want to challenge yourself to start scoring lower cards and meet your handicap.
Golf can be a very lonely sport at the end of the day, particularly if you’re a beginner trying to meet new people and learn the game. As much as golf coaches are a resource of golfing expertise, they’re also someone you can socialize with, play a round of golf with, and vicariously meet new people.
Sure, scoring low rounds and getting better at the game is a big part of why you’d want to take lessons. But many people overlook the social and personal elements that come with that. Golf primarily is a social game built for human interaction, and that’s why so many people love to play it. For that reason alone, I advise anyone wanting to play golf regularly to grab your clubs, head down to your local club, and book a lesson with one of their coaches.
Want to know everything there is to know about golf lessons? If so I suggest you take a look at my helpful article.
