Learning Golf Lessons from a Pro vs Self Taught (Video) - by Pete Styles
Learning Golf Lessons from a Pro vs Self Taught (Video) - by Pete Styles

A PGA.-qualified golf coach, spends his life and his working hours trying to help everyone improve at the game of golf. I honestly feel that most people will improve much faster playing golf with a PGA-qualified professional looking after their fundamentals of the golf swing. But I'm fully aware that lots of people choose to play the game without taking lessons up to a certain point.

Now, there's so many different resources where you can get information from now. Things like this website, for example, where I'm giving you good advice to try and help you improve on your golf. So don't be afraid of having a look around the subjective learning to play golf before you take the plunge to take golf lessons. But I would advice you that you don't have to just go one route or another route. It's not only lessons or only self-taught. You could start to research the subject on your own, find out as much information as possible, even experiment with it a little bit on the driving range.

But you can also then back that up by going to see a qualified PGA golf coach in your area asking their advice on, "Is this the right movement to be working on? Should I be progressing with my golf swing on this information rather than this information?" There's lots of conflicting different piece of advice where some will work for different golfers, some will work for different swings, some will work for different sizes and body shapes.

But the benefits of having a PGA golf coach look at your game is they're giving you personalized instruction straight from them to you. They can see your golf swing. They might even have a video system where you can see your own swing as well, which I use everyday and I find that very beneficial. They give you then a targeted improvement plan to work on exactly the issues you need to work on. Then you go back into the self-taught idea of going onto the driving range, working through their improvement plan, trying to work on those different areas. And then maybe go back up for a monthly or a fortnightly check-up to see how your progress is going.

So I would give you a word of caution that don't go down the realms of just being self-taught. You could end up in a dead end where after years of playing, you're still not grasping the fundamentals. But also don't be afraid to experiment and try out different things. If your friends and your fellow golfing partners give you piece of advice or whether that maybe well meaning piece of advice, I would just question to myself, "I wonder what that guy does for a living." And if he's a builder, I'll be honest with you, he's probably a great builder, but he's not a great golf coach. I'm a great golf coach. I'm not a great builder.

So just stick to what you know. If you take the advice from your friends, take that advice back to your PGA golf coach. Ask their advice, "My friends said I was doing this on the golf course. Do you think that's right?" And then get their opinion and hopefully that will help you improve your golf in the long-term.

 2012-05-09

A PGA.-qualified golf coach, spends his life and his working hours trying to help everyone improve at the game of golf. I honestly feel that most people will improve much faster playing golf with a PGA-qualified professional looking after their fundamentals of the golf swing. But I'm fully aware that lots of people choose to play the game without taking lessons up to a certain point.

Now, there's so many different resources where you can get information from now. Things like this website, for example, where I'm giving you good advice to try and help you improve on your golf. So don't be afraid of having a look around the subjective learning to play golf before you take the plunge to take golf lessons. But I would advice you that you don't have to just go one route or another route. It's not only lessons or only self-taught. You could start to research the subject on your own, find out as much information as possible, even experiment with it a little bit on the driving range.

But you can also then back that up by going to see a qualified PGA golf coach in your area asking their advice on, “Is this the right movement to be working on? Should I be progressing with my golf swing on this information rather than this information?” There's lots of conflicting different piece of advice where some will work for different golfers, some will work for different swings, some will work for different sizes and body shapes.

But the benefits of having a PGA golf coach look at your game is they're giving you personalized instruction straight from them to you. They can see your golf swing. They might even have a video system where you can see your own swing as well, which I use everyday and I find that very beneficial. They give you then a targeted improvement plan to work on exactly the issues you need to work on. Then you go back into the self-taught idea of going onto the driving range, working through their improvement plan, trying to work on those different areas. And then maybe go back up for a monthly or a fortnightly check-up to see how your progress is going.

So I would give you a word of caution that don't go down the realms of just being self-taught. You could end up in a dead end where after years of playing, you're still not grasping the fundamentals. But also don't be afraid to experiment and try out different things. If your friends and your fellow golfing partners give you piece of advice or whether that maybe well meaning piece of advice, I would just question to myself, “I wonder what that guy does for a living.” And if he's a builder, I'll be honest with you, he's probably a great builder, but he's not a great golf coach. I'm a great golf coach. I'm not a great builder.

So just stick to what you know. If you take the advice from your friends, take that advice back to your PGA golf coach. Ask their advice, “My friends said I was doing this on the golf course. Do you think that's right?” And then get their opinion and hopefully that will help you improve your golf in the long-term.