The million dollar question…or at least that’s what it feels like when spending money on a top-rated instructor. This week we ramble a bit about whether taking lessons is worth the money. It’s a complicated question and even more complicated answer. If you’re looking for a definitive “Yes” or “No” here, you’ve come to the wrong place. There are so many sides to that box, with no right answer for every person. I can only give my perspective after 30+ years of playing the greatest (and most frustrating) game….grip it and rip it.

Should I Take Lessons?

The simple answer is….it depends. I know, not what you wanted to hear. But the reality is, lessons may not be for everyone, and it often depends on a few factors:

• How much discretionary money do you want to spend?

• How much time do you want to devote to improving?

• Do you have access to a good instructor?

• Are you willing to stick to a long process? Or do you need to see immediate results?

• Where are you on your golfing journey? Are you new to the game and need to learn the basics? Or are you a low single-digit handicap looking to shave off those last few strokes?

I’ll try to touch on some of those questions - but it might make more sense to walk through a timeline of my own golf journey. Although I had played a few times in my youth, I really came to the game later in life. Like most kids, I played the more popular sports like football and baseball - and golf was an afterthought….a silly game played by old guys in bad clothes. I could probably count on two hands the number of times I played in my life up through my college graduation.

But graduating and entering the business world, it became apparent that golf was a quick ticket to quality time with the kind of people I needed to be around - bosses, clients, and people living the kind of life I wanted to live eventually. And the more time I spent digging into the game, the more I fell in love with its crazy nuances. I actually enjoyed the grind. Fast forward to graduate school, and that’s when the pursuit of the elusive game became real. I went to a university that had an Alistair McKenzie designed course….and it was $200 all you could play for the year! Needless to say, I became hooked, and found myself missing the occasional MBA class on a sunny day. Through sheer repetition and determination, I whittled the 20 handicap down to around 10-12. Not bad for a home-made, over the top swing with some crappy persimmon clubs. It was at that point that I finally sprang for my first golf lesson. Some guy named Rocky that coached the university teams. His approach was unusual, and didn’t line up at all with the myriad of instructional golf books that I had been consuming. But in one lesson, the ball magically flew off the club like never before - and it seemed effortless. I very distinctly remember we hit 7-iron and 4-iron out in a field, and the results were immediate and astonishing.

However, as much as I tried, I could not hold onto that swing cue in the following years, and I couldn’t afford to go back to him. Here was a case of an instructor that I thought was very good at communicating the method, it worked immediately and I saw instant improvement - THAT is my kind of instructor. Unfortunately, the planets were not aligned - I had the desire, he was a good coach - but I didn’t have the money to keep getting lessons. And this goes to my point above of “How much discretionary cash do you want to spend?” I see the Lessons question all the time on Twitter, and people get quite incredulous that the only way to improve is to get a PGA instructor…how it’s money better spent than buying a new driver, etc., etc. And while I don’t disagree that it can often be a better investment than a new $600 driver - I think there are two problems with that:

1. Not everyone can afford that $600 driver. I golf with plenty of people that are playing 10-year old hand me down clubs and they don’t have the money to pay for lessons….they are saving their money every week just to pay for the occasional weekend t-time, or diapers, or food.

2. Not every golf instructor is worth the money. And some certainly not worth what they charge.

The second point is potentially controversial, but sorry - over 30 years I have spent money on PGA instructors that were not only not worth their fee, but I felt they actually made me worse than when I started with them. The truth is, not everyone is good at their job - that’s just a fact. In every profession, in every walk of life - there are people that are great/world class, people that are good, people that are average/passable…..and people that flat out suck. I’ve gotten lessons from pros that fall into each of those categories.

And the most challenging part is, you often have no idea which camp that pro falls into before you sign up for a lesson. And capitalism being what it is, once a pro does start getting recognition (whether deserved or pure PR hype), their hourly fee starts to skyrocket. The challenge of finding an affordable coach, who is actually worth the money…is real.

Back to my journey. As I continued to fall in love with the game, I discovered that I actually enjoyed the process of trying to get better. “Dig it out of the dirt”, as Hogan said. I loved hitting balls. I loved practicing - it was cathartic, and tangible. Two steps forward, one step back. Tweak this, try that. In that process, I actually got myself down to a mid-single digit handicap.

But inevitably, I would hit roadblocks, or bad habits would creep in that I couldn’t self-correct. When the wheels fell off, they fell hard, and I needed professional help and another set of eyes. So in my 30’s I had the good fortune of coming across a young teaching professional by the name of Jason Sutton (The Golf Guru) working at the now defunct Dana Radar Golf Academy.

And here is where planets did align. Jason was young, and reasonably priced - but also knew his shit. I finally had enough money that I could pay for reasonable lessons as long as they were productive. And that is where accidentally stumbling on a good pro made all the difference. Every single lesson I ever took with Jason, I left at the end hitting the ball as pure as I ever had. I improved every single time I took a lesson with him - no exception. And THAT is the standard by which I judge PGA instructors today. Did I leave the lesson hitting it better than when I arrived, and was it coaching that could stick. With Jason, we got to the point where a lesson or two, and I was puring the ball. I could go off and play for a good 6-months or so before some erroneous habit crept back in….at which time I would take a single lesson from Jason and he would straighten me out immediately. See you again in 6 months.

Through that process, putting in the practice, and joining a country club, I worked my way down to my lowest index to that point of 1.9. That was an enjoyable time in my golf life.

After that, life and kids got in the way of golf. I relocated and lost the country club, lost my instructor, spent my time coaching my kids (which I wouldn’t trade for the world), and before I knew it, I hadn’t played golf in 5 years. Once the kids moved into high school, I found myself getting back into the game and the passion returned - but the game had not. Time to start digging in the dirt again.

However, five years away from the game brought the following changes:

1. Equipment and technology had changed massively

2. The way the game was taught had changed drastically (think Jim McClean and David Leadbetter to George Gankas??!!)

3. My game SUCKED

4. YouTube opened a world of rabbit holes

5. The game had gotten disproportionately even more expensive

6. I could NOT hit balls like I used to - the body simply couldn’t take the repetitive beating it once could

Finding myself back at square one, I confronted all the issues above. I started scouring YouTube for instruction. Some great, some meh….and some flat out awful. As a swing tinkerer, YouTube is a dangerous medium. It is difficult to have the discipline to avoid every little swing tip you come across. Most do NOT apply to your swing, and it’s hard to cut through the nonsense.

After getting back to a low single-digit in time, I also went the fitting route with a top-notch local fitter, and the impact was fairly dramatic. Between the new technology available (replacing 10-13 year old clubs), and the improvements in the fitting process (see prior issues on this subject), the impact was fairly drastic.

Then began the search for an instructor that could help shave off those last few strokes - and here is where, once again, I became disillusioned with the PGA Instructor quandary. It is simply impossible to know beforehand whether a particular teaching pro is right for you - and whether they are worth whatever rate they are charging. During this time I tried 3 different instructors in an effort to get to scratch. I can unequivocally say that none of them provided what I considered value for the price.

The first was a name brand, national indoor teaching facility. (What can I say, I was desperate). The young kid was like a deer in the headlights. He had no idea what to do with me. $125 bucks down the toilet and back to digging it out myself. I worked my way - on my own - back down to a 1 hcp.

That worked well for some period of time, then I caught the shanks and started hitting hooks and pushes - so I tried the 2nd instructor. Clearly I now know I had a path issue (too in-to-out). But this whacky-ass instructor tried completely revamping my entire swing to some unorthodox methodology that left me scratching my head and hitting it worse than ever in my life. Another $150 wasted. Back to the drawing board solo. More dirt-digging on my own yielded my best results yet - getting down to .6 by starting to understand data, ball-flight physics, and course strategy like Decade (shout out to Scott Fawcett).

Unfortunately, as golf does, it started to beat me up a little. I lost my swing and jumped up to between a 3-4 hcp.

After coming to understand and appreciate the knowledge and data provided by top-notch launch monitors (Trackman & GC Quad) the third time I targeted a well-known teacher who had all of the latest in technology at his fingertips. And while the Trackman info was awesome and beneficial - I simply wasn’t getting better - I was getting worse. He put me into positions that were not good matchups with my particular swing. Once again, my mantra of leaving a lesson better than when I came kicked in to play (spoiled so many years ago by Jason Sutton). I was paying $295/lesson and seeing no improvement. In fact, I felt even more paralyzed on the course trying to play position golf…instead of just playing golf.

That very expensive experiment ended, and I went back at it myself again - focusing on rotation, face control, and contact. I shortened the swing, worked on the short game, focused on rotating and flattening the lead hand, and tried to be more athletic in execution. That led to my lowest handicap ever of +.4.

Of course, like my weight, that fluctuates up and down slightly - but I feel good about where my game is at now. I’ve taken another lesson purely for pitching and chipping (having suffered a few years through the yips), and this instructor was very good - and I will give him another try on the full swing if I get to that point.

But bottom line - I firmly believe that the years of working things out on my own, and educating myself on swing mechanics and ball flight characteristics, allows me to diagnose problems a little quicker, and work back toward a neutral direction. Feel and Real are still different, and there is no substitute for a GOOD PGA instructor to see and correct things much faster than I can on my own. The challenge I see for me, and everyone looking for an instructor - is finding a GOOD one at a fair price. There are lots of opinions on this, and most pros will insist it takes months, if not years, of grinding on a change to see improvement. But life is short, and I’m inpatient. Most people don’t want to spend a fortune over some long period of time to enjoy playing better golf. And perhaps my opinion is ridiculous on this, but if I am paying a teacher, my expectation is that I will leave the lesson and play better golf. Maybe not jumping from shooting 85 to shooting 75 - but I want to feel like I am improving, I see a path, and I am swinging it better. If not, then I don’t see the value proposition. It would be one thing if lessons were $50/hr - but today they seem to be at least $125/hr, with many at $250-$300/hr. And if you’re looking at some famous name instructors that teach PGA Tour pros - forget it, the rates are in the stratosphere at $500-$5,000/lesson.

So back to the original question - Should I get Lessons? Unfortunately, only you can answer whether it’s worth it for you. If you can find a good instructor, that communicates effectively, and you leave your lesson hitting it better than when you started…and you feel like you gained value - then absolutely it’s worth it. Otherwise, you may be better off, “Digging it out of the dirt!”

Keep swinging….

What have we been watching?

A quick spin around some of the YouTube golf that’s been grabbing our time and attention…

This one from Milo Lines is money - great content as usual from him. In an issue where we debate paying for a lesson - THIS is a guy that I think is worth the price…there is value there. He communicates effectively, he not only talks the talk but can walk the walk - the dude flat out smokes the ball; and his live lesson videos show immediate improvement with students. He’s on my very short list of teachers I’d like to see in person.

Want to add some quick distance without changing your swing or hitting The Stack? Pretty eye opening stuff here on the impact of tee height on launch and distance.

Eager to try out the new Ai Smoke driver - currently game a Callaway Epic Flash, and it looks like the off-center strike improvement is real!

The “Every Hole at XXXXX” series is pretty cool. While Pebble is not my favorite, it’s still pretty cool - and this series of videos helps give a great tour of the courses.