You just paid for your first golf lesson but somehow you feel WORSE off than before the lesson! The reality is if you want to improve you need to accept getting worse for a short time in order to become better, keep reading and I will explain why.
You hit the ball worse after a lesson as your body needs time to compensate to perform the correct grip and set up as likely you had a lot of bad muscle memory in your golf swing. A golf swing is not learned by spending money but rather months of dedicated deliberate practice.
We like to think if we spend money on a golf lesson we immediately will become better but it isn’t that easy, developing an improved swing takes a lot of time to get accustomed to, and even pros will go through patches where they feel worse to get better.
Stick around, and I will explain in detail why you seem to get worse after golf lessons and how you need to get worse to get better.
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Why Can’t I Hit A Golf Ball Anymore?
You Associate A Good Shot With A Good Swing
As amateur golfers, we focus too much on what happens with the ball, if you hit a good ‘shot’ surely you have a good swing right? Not so fast.
Even if you have a bad set up angle, poor grip, bad follow through it is still possible to hit a good shot, it’s the same with hitting a bad shot with excellent fundamentals, but the latter will be far more consistent with their ball striking.
Depending on how long you played golf before your first lesson, your body could have build years of incorrect muscle memory, from holding the club too hard or having a poor grip so you’re accustomed to it. If you’re told to change this in a lesson, it will be tough to override this muscle memory in an attempt to get better.
To improve in golf, you need to accept getting worse for a short time in order to build up to something better, think of it like dismantling g a damaged house to its foundations in order to build a solid house on top.
This isn’t just for amateur golfers read this quote by Jordan Spieth saying that exact same thing.
The Frist thing I learned from Cam was patience. For me to become a more consistent ball-striker, he believed it was necessary to make a couple of significant swing changes. I remember hitting bags where only one out of every three balls got off the ground
Jordan Spieth
If Spieth, the winner of three majors struggled after golf lessons, that should show it’s a perfectly normal thing your going through.
Major swing changes will always feel very foreign, I remember when I changed my grip and it was horrible and awkward only after weeks did I hit the ball much more solid and it’s usually after months that true lasting changes will happen.
However, if you’ve been having lessons for months, and do all the required drills your instructor asks of you then it’s possible you have a bad instructor. Sure it takes time to improve, but you SHOULD feel you’re going in the right direction then just getting worse.
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For a complete guide on everything you need to know about golf lessons please check out my helpful article.
Amateur Golfers Want Band-Aid Solutions
Amateur golfers like to take a band-aid approach to golf improvement, which is not difficult but it is also ineffective because they are not fixing their swing faults but rather treating the symptoms
Even if you went to the most expensive coach in the world, you would not be able to practice what they teach for a week or two and suddenly improve. Improving does not come quickly or without effort but a lot of golfers think and hope easy fixes exist.
The allure of new and expensive equipment that promises to revolutionize your golf game is part of the reason why golf is so expensive and golf companies love to continue this narrative of new equipment transforming your game but it will not fix your problems.
If you want to improve by taking lessons you will hit the ball badly and your swing will feel awkward and uncomfortable until you practiced it enough to develop mind-body coordination to whatever part of the swing you want to improve.
For golf, the road to real improvement is simple: practice properly and work on one thing you’re trying to change for a minimum of three works to a month to improve, make sure you’re working on the right thing, and find the best instructor you can find.
Golf companies love promoting new equipment as easy fixes, but does golf club quality really makes a difference to your game? Learn the facts in my post.
Problem With Band-Aid Golf Solutions
Band-Aid instructions focus on immediate results, like trying to get the student to hit the ball better during the golf lessons, this satisfies most golfers’ need for immediate results for their money but the issue is it does not focus on the real problems and severely limits golfers potential and gives a false sense of hope.
For example, if your slice the ball you might be told it is caused by an open clubface at impact, and to correct this issue you need to close the face by rolling the arms over or via closing the club face in another way.
Rather than understanding why the club-face is open and then solving that problem, this focuses on covering up the systems(open-clubface) rather than fixing why the club-face is open(the real problem).
So what is the problem with immediate results? Well, when was the last time you tried to learn something that was very difficult and found you immediately did it well?
If you are motivated to be a better golfer, you should improve your golf swing fundamentals to improve your golf. Take a look at 99% of professionals and you will notice they have superb golf fundamentals, doing the simple things right puts them on the platform for golfing success.
You need to understand what a correct golf swing, is and know what applying these fundamentals to your swing in a lesson, especially if you’ve played golf for years without good fundamentals takes time, practice, and determination.
Don’t be surprised if you get worse initially, as your body is so used to doing things a certain way, it will be uncomfortable trying to do something new. If you surrender to your body’s desire to avoid change then you lost the battle before it started.
Real improvements in your swing are not quick or painless, it is a long, slow journey that you need to continue with even when you hit the ball badly, and you WILL go through these periods. Forget the quick fix and take the long-term approach to improve the fundamentals of your swing.
If you want to build a house, would you build one on poor foundations when it could eventually topple over( injuries from a bad swing), or rather take the time to build a solid foundation that will last for years?
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Most Golfers Only Reach A Certain Level
One study found the average golfer reaches their level after only three years of playing and why do you think this happens?
The reasons are simple, they do not practice properly, don’t have a good instructor, or don’t stick with a correct program through the frustration and awkwardness that comes with making real swing improvements.
The best thing you can do after a golf lesson is to practice your new swing without a golf ball for at least 10 minutes every day (the longer and more often the better).
Have you ever wanted to do something but the body had other ideas? When you stand over a ball and want to hit it, your body will control the swing not your mind. Give any opportunity your body will revert back to the more comfortable- your old swing.
The ideal way to teach your body something new is slow and gradual without a golf ball. A good teacher should be focussing on only one thing, so stop at that position often so your body can learn where it needs to be to develop mind-muscle control for that position.
Once your body is used to it, you can put more emphasis on trying to learn the move whilst hitting balls.
Once you are at the range, hit practice shots and make three to four practice shots for every ball you hit to reinforce what you’re trying to teach your body to do. You want your mind out of the swing to make it automatic as soon as possible.
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Ben Hogan once said in disgust that.
He didn’t teach because he couldn’t find anybody who wanted to learn.
Ben Hogan
Ben Hogan was referring to everyone wanting to become a better golfer, but not everyone wants to go the distance and work through the frustration of becoming worse to get better by improving a faulty swing.
Want to know everything there is to know about golf lessons? If so I suggest you take a look at my helpful article.
