Taking lessons @ golf Galaxy

[daddymack]

For those who don't know. Golf Galaxy is a like a golf super store chain. Since playing the best golf of my life a couple of months ago I have went downhill fast.

Golf Galaxy offer lessons at a reasonable price. Along with the lessons you get a video of your swing to show what you are doing wrong. You can keep it to look back on in the future.

My biggest concern, are they teachers or salesmen? I wonder if they will say all my problems are due to: poor club fitting $, Wrong shaft $, Wrong clubs $, along with some training aids or videos they want to try and sell me. I'm not trying to make the tour. 90% of the people I play with use off the rack clubs and are just fine. I'm not at that level yet.

After all this, My question is, has anyone taken lesson at a Golf Galaxy? If so, How was your experience?

Thanks

[BStone]

I'm friends with a couple of pros at Golf Galaxy stores. They are better served by getting you to take more lessons rather than buying new clubs. The nicest thing about Golf Galaxy is that the people there do not get commission, so they are not going to push a certain product on you. The pros there are almost independent of the store itself.

[MIKE1218]

I took several lessons at Golf Galaxy last winter, and I plan to take more this year. The guy I go to is not like a salesman at all. He understands my swing. Before Golf Galaxy, I tried a pro at a local course and he started trying to change my swing around almost immediately. But at Golf Galaxy, the pro took one look at my practice swing and knew my normal shot shape and normal miss and told me why I did it that way. He really tries to get get me to have a certain feeling, not really focus on mechanics at all. I definately recommend you take one lesson to try it out.

[Sandy]

I got a lesson at my local Golf Galaxy back in January and can highly recommend them. I went with them for two reasons - firstly it was indoors, and at that time the snow and cold weather didn't really make a lesson at the local range feasible, and secondly I knew I wanted a lesson on mechanics, so wasn't bothered about hitting into the net as I didn't want to get hung up on the ball-flight anyway.

I just booked online, showed up and it was as easy as it could be. The pro was absolutely great, spotted my problems within a couple of swings, answered any queries I had, and at no point put ANY pressure on me to buy anything from the store or any kind of lesson plan. The key points of the session were caught on video, and the clips of my swing (complete with commentary) were in my inbox by the time I got home as a permanent record of what he'd gone through with me.

One of the best investments I've made, and I'd recommend going to the Golf Galaxy pros to anyone.

[Lefty11]

I've taken lessons at Golfsmith last year and it felt like my golf pro was trying to push me to get a lesson plan, because thats how he makes his commision off me.

I've been in a horrible funk lately and need to get out of some bad habits. I actually just booked a lesson by calling today and was able to book it later today right after work. So far it's very convenient, hopefully the lesson can help as I have a county Amatuer qualifier this weekend and I don't want to embaris myself....

I'll post later tonight after the lesson...

[Sandy]

Originally Posted by Lefty11

I've taken lessons at Golfsmith last year and it felt like my golf pro was trying to push me to get a lesson plan, because thats how he makes his commision off me.

Was this the GolfTEC instruction that you find at Golfsmith stores? If so then I've had a friend have a very similar experience, where they are basically only interested in selling you packages rather than individual lessons. This fits into their teaching methodology, which appears to be entirely based on using technology to break the swing down and rebuild it from a purely technical standpoint. My friend did a whole course of lessons with them, and found that he felt he was swinging much better, but that it was all very clinical and not at all organic.

He (and his wife who went through the same course, and felt all it did was try to replace all her 'feel' with thoughts about mechanics) aren't going back, instead using one of the pros at the local range during good weather, and probably using the Golf Galaxy teacher during the winter, at my recommendation.

[Lefty11]

Yes it was GolfTEC.

The problem with it is exactly what you were saying... All they do is have you swing a few times with censors on your shoulders and waste. Then pull up a split screen with your swing and a tour player and try to build your swing around a tour players Hip Turn/Shoulder Turn averages.

[Lefty11]

So I had my lesson @ Golf Galaxy. The overall experience was great! This is nothing like GolfTec and the golf pro that helped me really did not try and get me to buy a lesson plan at all.

Lesson: I'm a lefty and I've been initiating the swing with my left hand causing a little flip and leaving the face open at the start of my backswing. I also had my hands really close to the body at setup (Kind of like Furyk) which has been leading to consistent slicing with longer clubs especially because I didn't have enough room to turn my hands at impact. My pro noticed these two flaws within the first 5 minutes. He first created a little pre shot routine to have my hands at a normal distance from my body at setup. He also had me start and control the swing with my right hand while using the left hand as guidance which resulted in a nice one-piece take away and leaving a more consistent chance of having a square club face on impact. After the 30 minute lesson I went to the range and shot 200 balls practicing these new methods and I was consistently straight from Driver - Lob Wedge with solid contact and the trajectory I'm looking for.

By the time I got home the lesson was in my E-mail inbox and I saw the important parts of the lesson on video while the Golf Pro was commentating. I tried to attach this .avi file which is under the max size I can attach it on this thread, but I got an error.....Anyway, I would recommend this to anyone over GolfTec, I am very satisfied. Let’s hope I can take what I've learned and play better on the course.