PGA Golf Professional,
I am honored to have this chance to submit some golf coaching advice for the Carolina PGA Section that I have collected over the years, and I hope this helps you as much as it has my students. Simply put, my teaching philosophy is to help people “Manage Your Golf Game” ©. For me as an instructor, this means that I can give the student the tools and resources to help themselves get better at golf. I like to tell the golfer that we are working on their self-medication, and in a world with too many overdoses it is a nice reprieve from this age of information. It is an awesome and powerful responsibility, but as PGA Golf Professionals, we can empower our students to grab control of their golf games, and genuinely have some say in the outcome! I have had many students over the years say to me, “I am doing better with what I am trying to do and when I don’t execute, I know exactly how to fix it!” This is a very different golfer than the one who leaves the golf course saying, “I have no idea what I’m doing.” Who do you think is coming back to play again?
Over my 30 years of teaching, I have seen the value in both old school and new school teaching. They both require a sharp eye but maybe even more so, a sharp ear. While the old school method takes time, patience, and dedication, the new school method is more data driven with less time, not as much patience, but just as much dedication. Below are some old school and new school techniques that I use to help students manage their golf game, can you pick which ones are which?
- With your driver, the ball will carry about 2.5 yards for every mph you can generate.
- Nobody cares how much you know until you show how much you care.
- You should always hit the ball first, and the club should bottom out well after the ball.
- You can either hit the ball first, or a little of the ground first, and the shot will be ok.
- Putting is about 43% of your score.
- Club path is less important than club face at impact.
- Heel toe, heel toe.
- Hips are on average 40 deg. open at impact, and chest 30 deg. open at impact.
Some new tools that I use to teach with are:
- TrackMan, BodiTrak, K-Coach, CoachNow, I pad mini, V1, and TPI.
If you can, spend some time working on both old and new school techniques to improve your teaching and relationships with your students. They will thank you for it! For more information, you can join my Coaches Corner PGA Teaching site at : https://app.coachnow.io/i/08dfb05536/5f9f , and feel free to send me an e-mail if I can help : dl@davidlapourgolf.com . (quiz answers: 1-N, 2-O, 3-O, 4-N, 5-both, 6-N, 7-O, 8-N)
Thanks again to the Teaching & Coaching Committee and the Section!
David La Pour