Should I invest in lessons?

[CiminoUM5]

Here's my story...essentially just started playing a little over 3 months ago. I had played infrequently at best for about 10 years prior to that (think: average of one round a year, if that). The girlfriend paid for my clubs at xmas and I've been hooked since then, playing about once a week. I started off pretty awful, as to be expected from a beginner. 120s mostly. I then invested $6 in Noel Thomas's Master Key e-book. It took a couple weeks, but I started noticing some significant improvement. Started shooting between 107-111 for a few weeks, then out of nowhere came the high point of my golfing "career", a 96! I hadn't planned on breaking 100 for at least a couple more months, so needless to say I was thrilled. Granted, it was at one of the easier courses around, but I still thought it was pretty impressive given I essentially had less than 3 months experience under my belt.

Well, since then, the wheels have completely fallen off. Went back to the same course and shot a 113. Followed by a 118 and most recently, a 120, at 2 different courses. Needless to say, I'm frustrated as hell and not enjoying the game much. I should mention that I messed up my left shoulder at the gym in between the 96 and the 113. Since the master key method teaches controlling your swing with your left shoulder, it's probably a good bet that it played a big factor in my game falling apart. However, my shoulder's felt totally fine the last 2 times out and they produced my worst 2 scores in nearly 2 months.

My bday is coming up this Saturday and the g/f isn't sure what to get me, and I thought a lesson or 2 might be a good idea. But I'm a little wary at the same time....for one, I've heard and read online that if you don't get a good instructor, there's a good chance it's just gonna screw your game up more. And I have yet to figure out a way to discern the good pros from the bad....tried plenty of searches online but not much success with anything conclusive. Also, past these couple that she's gonna pay for, I really can't afford to continue with more lessons, so I wonder if it's even worth starting with them if I can't continue to go back to the guy (or gal) to monitor my progress.

What do you guys think? Obviously you can't diagnose anything without seeing my swing, but I'm not happy at all with my game at the moment. Of course I also haven't made it out to the range in a few weeks, probably since around when I shot the 96, so I'm wondering if that hasn't played a big part in my regression. I've definitely been duffing more shots the last few rounds than the handful of rounds prior, which leads me to believe that not getting to the range is a big hinderance in keeping a beginner's ballstriking consistant.

 

[TheTrueReview]

CiminoUM5, I could give a long and reasoned response to your question but at the end of it all the answer is always - "yes".

Good luck with learning this wonderful and, at times, very frustrating game!!!

 

[mddubya]

Lessons will be the best money you will ever spend if you intend on playing this crazy game.

 

[farscape7]

i thought i had a pretty good swing and found a place that offered a free lesson so i thought what the heck. The golf pro had the nerve to tell me all these faults i had about how i was planting my right foot and how i wasnt hitting down on the ball and i that was scooping it. it was very demoralizing. My advice is never get a lesson. If i need someone to tell me my problems i will get married.

 

[WMitch6]

Lessons are right up there with practice for improving your game. If you are serious about playing, Take some lessons and spend lots of time on the range.

Ask around for a good local pro. It may not be the guy at the course.

 

[gpo]

Spend 50 solid hours chipping and putting. If you do this you will be able to break 100 all the time. The cost on this is free. Also you will get used to making contact with the ball and get better with full swings. While you are doing this read some books from the library about golf. Cost is free. Then go out to a field and hit 100 yard shots. Cost again is free. Then ask the GF for range money instead of lessons. Bang about 2000 balls. I think by then you will be in good shape. Report back

 

[Riverologist]

Pay for three lessons and then just work your ass off at the range. After that, maybe reading books might help you but I think you need those lessons to actually have someone tell you what you are doing wrong/right and help you understand why you are hitting wrong when you start to miss hit shots.

Lessons dramatically reduced my scores and improved my consistency, along with some good sessions at the range.

 

[SiberianDVM]

For a beginner, I would think 10 range sessions would be much more productive than 10 rounds of golf, and probably much less frustrating.

The best solution might be to find a range where they have instructors. Seriously, at my range, there are several part-time, free-lance instructors who are afiliated with the range. They offer lessons for a fee, but since I practically used to live there, I became friends with most of them, and when I'm struggling they are happy to give me free tips.

Spend some time at the range, get a couple of begginer lessons, and develop a repeatable swing before expecting too much out of yourself on a course. It's not all about the score unless you're playing tourneys.

 

[floggerrushmd]

If you are only going to get a few lessons have the pro work with you on short game. This is the area of the game where the fewest lessons and a few new drills can lead to the most rapid improvement. Thus my decision on where/who to take lessons from would be centered around who has a short game practice facility. To work with a pro on your full swing is a long and involved process which requires several lessons and repeated visits to fully take effect. In your time frame and constraints I would say yes take the lessons, but just focus on the short game.

 

[cypressperch]

One of the funniest things I have ever seen on TV was when Vick, dog-loving QB, watched Tiger give a demonstration and was asked if he would like to give it a try with the golf club. Vick said, "That did not look too hard." Vick, unfortunately, was not able to duplicate the seemingly easy movements that had taken Tiger a long, long time to develop. Tiger has had a lot of help with his game over the years. It is very unlikely that he would have reached where he is without all that instruction. The same is true of the vast majority of golfers who have excelled.

I started playing golf at Showa Air Station in Japan as an Air Force brat at the age of twelve. I took several lessons from a pro named Ishikawa (I doubt if he is related to the current Japanese star Ryo Ishikawa.) I was shooting in the high seventies and low to mid eighties in junior high. If I had been able to keep that instruction going I might have become a contender. Still, I got off to a pretty good start at a young age, and now at the age of 63, I occasionally shoot scores in the low seventies. Those lessons long ago have always been my foundation.

I sort of like the idea above about developing the short game to develop the ability to achieve good contact and to score better. Even there, however, there is proper and improper technique that lessons could help with. Once you have proper technique, I whole-heartedly agree that time practicing the short game pays higher dividends than pounding drive after drive at the range.

Reading can help, but I think we need to be aware of something that just is not mentioned very often. All instruction about golf and the golf swing does not fit together very nicely. Some stress the swinging of the club and others focus on the turns made by the body. Some have us tilting our body away from the target more for longer clubs than shorter ones, while others teach not to tilt the body that way on any club with the only tilting being that which occurs naturally from the right hand being lower on the club than the left. We could get into one plane and two plane swings. We could talk about stack and tilt whatever. There are a lot of different ideas out here, and as I have said, there is no meshing of these different ideas. Even words such as "release" have different meanings as we switch books, philosophies, and so forth. No wonder some of us get into periods of confusion.

On top of this, there are likely to be differences in the best way to swing a golf club when we compare, for example, a six foot, eight inch golfer who weighs two hundred pounds and a four foot, eight inch golfer who weighs three hundred pounds.

So I agree with those who say that the answer is "yes." As I recently read somewhere, "the most important piece of golf equipment we have is actually our body." That "body" invariably needs some instruction before it can be of much use.

Best of luck to you with your game. Sincerely, Cypressperch

 

[ezra76]

Yes, get lessons. Your golf swing is the most important piece of equipment you have. If you build a fundamentally solid swing, you can be a good golfer. If you don't, you will always suck. I hate to sound harsh but worrying about an instructor messing up your game when you shot almost 50 over par...

Seriously though, get lessons. I waited a long time and ingrained a lot of bad habits. I'm extremely inconsistant. Everytime I have gone through a period of consistant good scores was after a lesson. I'll be hunting down my instructor this week, literally. I went from thinking I might be scratch soon to over 90 twice in the last 3weeks. Need an expert to look at it and help me fix it.

 

[blackxpress]

The answer to your question, in a word is, "Yes." Don't make the same mistake I did. I played golf self taught for several years and rarely ever broke 100. It was very frustrating. Last year I decided to get serious about my game and took lessons. I had to unlearn an awful lot of bad habits. I did manage to get my scores down into the 80s, with the occasional mid-90s round rearing its ugly head, and I'm enjoying the game more now than ever before. I'm taking lessons again this year and my game is rapidly improving. Just got back from playing a quick 9. Shot 42 and was actually disappointed because I bogeyed the last 2 holes. But I digress. Find a good pro and start taking lessons ASAP. If you ingrain a bunch of swing flaws in your muscle memory it'll be much harder to fix your swing later. Lessons are the best money you can possibly invest in your game.

 

[gwlee7]

Ask some of the better and more experienced golfers in your area who the good teaching pros are. Listen very carefully to what they say. Remember, expensive does not always mean good. There are a lot of really good teachers out there that don't charge an arm and a leg. Some of the best lessons I got when I got back into playing I "traded" for by being willing to pick up the range for the pro at the course so he didn't have to. He let me hit all the balls I wanted as well.

Also, when you start taking the lessons. DO NOT and I mean DO NOT immediately start reading a bunch of swing tips on any golf forum including this one. Give the pro a chance. If your swing doesn't start to improve within a couple of weeks to a month, then, maybe ask around again and look for someone else.

 

[CiminoUM5]

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. While I've come to the conclusion that lessons are definitely a good idea, I've decided in the interest of saving money that I'm just going to go with gpo's recommendation and have her pay for a bunch of my buckets at the practice range for a while. So far, the results have been good. I spent about 3.5 hours at the range on Monday, spending 2-2.5 soley on my short game. Also went back and re-read some of Thomas's ebook, which I hadn't really glanced at in a few weeks. Went and played 18 today and shot a 98, my 2nd best score to date.

By re-reading the Master Key book I realized that I had been making a pretty obvious and major mistake in my swing....I was bending my elbow way too early in the backswing, not keeping it straight and not allowing the momentum to take over and naturally cock my wrists. Sure enough, my swing went back to feeling like it had a few weeks prior and I was hitting the ball very cleanly for the most part. And I definitely could have broken into the low 90s....couldn't hit my woods off the deck today to save my life and the new short chipping method I tried out still needs some practice, as it cost me probably 3 or 4 strokes. All in all, I'm back to loving the game and plan on hitting the range a minimum of once a week for now on.

 

[shanker]

Before you run out and drop $100 per hour on lessons...think about this.
You can basically learn the same stuff from Haney or Ledbetters' dvds for a lot less money. The advantage of lesson is hands on teaching. My problem with lessons is they go too slow and they try to milk you forever.
I would HIGHLY recommend GROUP LESSONS. For some reason, people learn quicker in a group, maybe from the fear of being the dumbest one in the lot. Try group lesson first. It is half the price and twice as fun.