18 hole course lessons....

[RoughedgesMR]

the guy i took a lesson with the other day offers this. He is a great instuctor. Most i have ever learned in one lesson. He is from south africa and played pro. Well i found out today he offers these lessons. You pick the course of your choice and he comes out and plays a round with you giving tips and lessons. I think this would be great because of real time play and situations. Might try this once. What do all of you think?

 

[RCI]

One of my old teachers did this. He would follow around in a golf cart and offer insights... sometimes before the shot but often after the shot. He would then ask what my thoughts were before the shot. On mechanical failures (bad shots), he would diagnose the reason, on judgemental mistakes, he would tell me what he thought a better way might have been. He was very critical when I would under-club. Mental mistakes were unnecessary in his world. He accepted misses more easily than judgement errors.

For this to work, I think you need a relationship that removes or minimizes the influence of the artificial nature of the round. You need to be comfortable hitting the shot you would hit if your teacher was not present. You want a real situation, not a tense or critical series of moments that changes how you would play -- yep, that is hard to do.

 

[Pa Jayhawk]

When I started out playing, I took a couple course lessons. Although an 18 hole course lesson sounds expensive, and even more so if you are not a member and paying for the round or rounds. Not sure I would see the need to do an entire round.

When we took ours, my wife and I basically took it together but because he was the pro at our course we didn't have to pay for any greens fees. Plus if you plan to play 18, you are looking at about 4 hours of lessons and there is no assurance you will not be paying to wait behind a group in front of you. I would find it hard to concentrate on a lesson knowing that, and the round itself is pretty useless, so the cost of the round is a rightoff. On ours he initial would take us to particular situations to get an idea how we would play shots, then after we got a feel for the lessons he asked if we had any question on other particulars. I think even with two of us, it seemed 1 hour was enough. Then after a few weeks of evaluating what he mentioned on course management, we thought it was valuable enough that we went back. Because he was the pro there, we just went out on isolated areas and would simply skip holes if we ran into other people.

 

[ClairefromClare]

I've done a fair number of playing lessons, usually 60-90 minutes, 3-4 holes. Totally invaluable. I'd think a full 18 holes would give you too many swing thoughts--there's only so much information you can absorb at once.

 

[JEFF4i]

Don't they call that a caddy?

 

[Cobra guy]

Ive done this before. I worked with a guy from the European Tour, Ken Struckman. It really gets the fell of playing a round, and having real life situations rather than having to hit on a range or into a net.

 

[Victory]

excellent to do.. more so course managment than anything else. really a great way to take the driving range lesson to the course.

 

[RCI]

The guy I studied with that did the playing round was hardly a Caddie (although a great Caddie is a real boon for any golfer).

***edit: some of you may have read a much longer version of this posting that added considerable explanation about the experience, talked about the pro, his accomplishments, etc... I removed the extraneous words. Suffice it to say, I am uncomfortable providing too much extra information and have no desire to write posts with any hint of "oh yeah, wait to you hear of my experiences..."

Sometimes I think other golfers might benefit from others' experiences, but if any of you think something I write is expanding the topic beyond simple answers, just yet me know. I'll edit out my natural tendancy to add too much information. It is an old habit from having taught a lot of golfers, some of which have turned out to be very good despite my help. I owe three greats of the game a hearty thank you for sharing their teaching theories with me as I studied under them. Frankly it is a bit egocentric to think you might be interested in extra stuff. A long life in golf tends to build a great deal of stories and instances... not all of which are all that useful for everyone in a general forum. *** end of edit.

Regards,

 

[SplooGe]

Now I curious about what was written.

 

[natex14]

I think they are great, and you can learn so much about handling specific moments on the course. I think most people have already said that, so I'm just saying amen.

 

[Eracer]

Don't they call that a caddy?

Paula Creamer doesn't...:shocked:

 

[gwlee7]

Several times a year I'll play with the assistant pro at my home course. She sometimes spends part of the summer playing on the Future's Tour. She hits the ball just as far (and a lot better btw) as most amateur men do. She can easily shoot par on our course and often shoots in the 60's. I learn a lot from her and it only costs me a dollar a hole when she beats me. Most of these "playing lessons" will cost me about 5 or 6 dollars.