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Best Method for Learning?

JonMA1

JonMA1

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Some learn better with drills, some by video review, some by being described a "feel", and others can simply be told exactly what they need to accomplish and they're able to pull it off. For most, I'd guess it's a combination of more than one. Some don't care why something works, others have to understand the reasoning.

It seems like I learn best by a described feel - usually an exaggeration of where I need to be. An example would be told to "swing to right field" to correct swing path issues. Being told to "shallow the club", "stay on plane", or "release the club" and I'm clueless on what to do.

What about others? Whether students or instructors, what method(s) helped the most?
 
The lessons I’ve had, I find it most beneficial if I can actually be put into the position I need to be. Drills are of absolutely no benefit to me whatsoever.
 
Liveviewsports. Video and lessons.
 
A little off topic, but with all the golf instruction information now available I wonder how my dad learned to play golf in the early 60’s on a 9 hole goat track in rural Iowa. He had none of what we have now, but he was quite the ball striker. Maybe it was self-taught or those Sunday afternoon’s watching golf telecasts on a B&W TV. Maybe he had Hogan’s 5 lessons (circa. 1957). Just don’t know.
 
reading about simple fundamentals in the books of old- yellow back tommy Armour book and Hogans 5 fundamentals. I've had lessons often, have done drills and have video taped my swing 100's of times. So I ask myself why these old books. my best guess

1- they are so simple I don't loose the big point in the small points
2- they focus on grip. forget the pointing stuff alone but rather amount of pressure and the role of the trail arm. (trail arm kills my golf swing from 1991 and still today)
3- when I've had a really bad round and I read the following day, I'm able to take more literally what they say. So it is an easy framework for me to continually reference.
 
I'm a combo of all except video reviews like youtube. Watching someone else do it isn't helpful if they are starting from describing what I am doing. Watching myself is very helpful though. Having a comparison of what I am doing wrong and then drilling until I get the correct swing and shot is very helpful for me. I can usually carry over once I see the comparison of incorrect vs correct. Then drilling helps instill that.
 
I am a good book nerd, but when it comes to something like golf I am an experiential learner. I have to both understand and feel something to implement over time. And with golf, I find I need significant exaggeration in what I think I am doing to begin to feel what it is I need to do.
 
Having played golf for 25 years before finally having proper lessons I was so glad to pick the teacher I did.
He teaches in such a way that your body feels what is right. This is mainly achieved through balance work and feel drills. We went all the way back to square one and rebuilt my swing off a solid foundation.
He always records my swing at the beginning and end of the lesson so that I can review it at any time and understand the benefits of the change.

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk
 
I prefer feel descriptions rather positions and mechanics. For instance at setup tell me to get comfortable where I can feel my weight centered above and between my feet. Don't tell me to bend my knees a certain amount and have my butt in a certain spot and hold my head at the angle..
 
JonMA1 said:
Some learn better with drills, some by video review, some by being described a "feel", and others can simply be told exactly what they need to accomplish and they're able to pull it off. For most, I'd guess it's a combination of more than one. Some don't care why something works, others have to understand the reasoning.

It seems like I learn best by a described feel - usually an exaggeration of where I need to be. An example would be told to "swing to right field" to correct swing path issues. Being told to "shallow the club", "stay on plane", or "release the club" and I'm clueless on what to do.

What about others? Whether students or instructors, what method(s) helped the most?
Click to expand...
For me its feel. You can explain to me the mechanics of it all you want but I need to know what it should feel like. Beyond that, I just need to go out and figure it out for myself.
 
I think it is a combination with probably feel ranking at the top. Nothing feels as great as a well struck shot and the ability to repeat that process over and over would be my overall aim.
 
Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences has fallen somewhat out of favor, but I personally find many applications in my life. We can see it in this thread that some learning methods work better than others for individuals:

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I learned golf by reading books, primarily Hogan’s Power Golf and Five Lessons. I didn’t have the money for lessons when I was learning the game as a teenager so I dug it out of the ground on the range and got to the plus side of scratch by the time I was 19. Many weeks in high school and college I’d hit 2,000 balls a week and would spend a bunch more time on the practice green. The range time worked, the practice green time not so much, lol. I still pull out Hogan’s Five Lessons each spring and have dabbled watching a few instruction videos on Youtube but I’m still afraid to dive into a lesson package for fear that it will plant doubt and make me think too much on the course. :p

Other than about 6 or 7 putting lessons in the last 5 years, I’ve only had a handful of full swing lessons since 1978.
 
The key to learning anything is to ask plenty of questions. Rather it's via videos, in person, or books, questions will always be generated by the student.

Unless those questions are asked, answered, and understood, the student's lesson(s) will be incomplete.
 
I'm a visual learner. When I started my instructor would demo the swing (setup, grip, etc). breaking it down in steps. I would then mimic what he did multiple times and he would video it. We would examine the the video. Now that I understand more of the terminology it's easier to respond to verbal instruction. When I purchased a club recently the salesperson actually complimented me on my swing and asked where I learned to play. He has a daughter just getting started in golf and wanted her to see my instructor (instead of the in store instructor).
 
Different people have different learning styles. I know that I am the type of person that learns best by doing and repetition; there are other learning styles that suit other people the best. When I'm trying to learn or improve in this game, I want to get some instruction and then spend time at the range, time on the course, time at my house working on ingraining that into my swing to make it muscle memory.

That's not for everyone, and it means it takes an awfully long time for me to learn a swing concept, but it's what works for me.

Find your style of learning and then find instructors that can help you in that style
 
1. Get lessons so you know what to do.
2. Practice in slow motion so you never make a mistake.
3. Practice every day. Do something every day.
 
TLuke said:
A little off topic, but with all the golf instruction information now available I wonder how my dad learned to play golf in the early 60’s on a 9 hole goat track in rural Iowa. He had none of what we have now, but he was quite the ball striker. Maybe it was self-taught or those Sunday afternoon’s watching golf telecasts on a B&W TV. Maybe he had Hogan’s 5 lessons (circa. 1957). Just don’t know.
Click to expand...
I learned how to play golf in the 60’s without video, or launch monitors or computers. I got hands on lessons from my father who was self taught. We were pretty good, not scratch level, but not bad for weekend players. My learning was done at a young age and didn’t start with bad habits. From those early days of only having 3 shafts, (stiff, reg or ladies flex) persimmon woods, and only blades, no gap or lob wedges, and no hybrids it was your swing that made you a better player. Seeing all the advances in technology, if clubs made you better, you’d expect that everyone would be breaking 80 today.
If you and your instructor aren’t speaking the same language in the terms used, either learn the language or get a different instructor that you understand. Keep trying different methods until you find one that clicks with you.
 
Acesteve said:
reading about simple fundamentals in the books of old- yellow back tommy Armour book and Hogans 5 fundamentals. I've had lessons often, have done drills and have video taped my swing 100's of times. So I ask myself why these old books. my best guess

1- they are so simple I don't loose the big point in the small points
2- they focus on grip. forget the pointing stuff alone but rather amount of pressure and the role of the trail arm. (trail arm kills my golf swing from 1991 and still today)
3- when I've had a really bad round and I read the following day, I'm able to take more literally what they say. So it is an easy framework for me to continually reference.
Click to expand...

I think I learned more from Percy Boomer, Earnest Jones books and the old Bobby Jone films than any modern instructors.
 
Learning by “feel” is not a good idea. The old saying “there is feel and there is real” comes to mind. If the best players in the world can’t fix their swing by feel how are we supposed to do it. There is a reason the best players have swing coaches. That is sort of like the old saying “practice makes perfect”. That is simply not true. Only perfect practice makes perfect.

I think everyone learns best in different ways. For me drills are ok. But I am one that needs to know why. Why is the ball reacting the way it is? I tend to find for me I learn best with a combination of an instructor with video. I can watch my swing with the instructor right after I make it. He can then show me frame by frame where the issue or issues are and then show me how to change it. Then after working on changes comparing the old video to the new I can see the difference. Along with that my pro explains why the changes are affecting the ball flight. This helps me on the course as I usually know why the ball just reacted the way it did and can often fix minor issues myself.
 
I think the word "feel" can mean many different things. An instructor might use "feel" to get a student to perform a particular move if that student has trouble getting there otherwise. I've read quotes from tour players describing how feel as though they're pulling down on a rope to get the club into a good position on the downswing. It's not real, but it helps them. The thing to remember about feel is that it can and probably will change. For me, a feel that helped me play better one week becomes useless when the swing starts to go off the rails again a week later.

Feel also comes into play when I'm learning something completely different. If I need to fix a bad habit, the drill or change should feel weird or even wrong. If it doesn't feel different, I'm probably not doing it right. For me, that wrong feeling can be a detriment in learning a correct move - especially when combined with unrealistic expectations of immediate results. While a single simple change can sometimes reduce a slice, for example, in other cases a swing change may be more of an investment that will pay dividends later not sooner. Engrain the change first, then learn to make good contact with it. That's a tough one for me. It's so easy to go back to what was "working" before. Of course that begs the question "if it was working, why the hell was I seeking help?".

Finally, there's the type of feel that has little reference. The description of grip pressure or tension in the arms is another example of feel. Some feel their arms are passive, others will tell you they swing hard. How do even quantify something like that? I think we look at tour players like Fred Couples, Ernie Ells or Sam Snead and it certainly looks like they're not swinging hard. But when you look at a still photo of Tiger or Rory just before impact and the word "passive" doesn't come to mind. In Five Lessons, Hogan describes the golf swing as a powerful move. Personally, I've had an instructor tell me there's too much tension in my arms and another tell me to swing harder. IMO, it probably has less to do with effort and more to do with tempo and rhythm... different strokes for different folks.

In experimenting with it on my own, I've had both success and failure with each extreme. I've hit some of my longest drives on the first tee when I was just trying to start the round by keeping it in play. Other "long" drives come about after hitting consecutive two-way misses, with the third fueled by pure anger and reckless abandon as I smoke one 30 yards past my average. What exactly am I supposed to take away from that?

One of my favorite posts on learning/improving came from a low single-digit player years ago. He wrote that it would sometimes take a week or two of hitting into a net for even a minor change to start to take hold. From there, he would have to work on it even more at the range. He said going from inside to outside was a difficult transition for him. Only after several practice sessions outside was he able to take the change to the course. This from a -1 or -2 HC player!
 
I think this is so subjective. I was always an accurate player. Decent short game. Great putter. Always been my strength. But I knew with my limited length I would struggle to break 80. And I hit that point a year ago. When you are using woods and hybrids to fire at most greens your margin for error is slim.

So I took lessons for 3 months. With the pure intention of gaining distance. After 12 lessons and countless hours of practice and probably 30 rounds of golf it started to take hold. Now I’m inside the 150 mark consistently and using my scoring clubs. Havent broken 80 yet but I will.

So I “salad barred” my lessons. Used some fundamentals, some structured moves, some drills and worked them into my swing. Not all feel. Not all angles and swing points ect. Bit of both.

At an amateur level I think this is all we can do. If you are going to turn pro? Well that’s a different story. 😎
 
Well...first key is to find a GOOD coach. Easier said than done, but to me a good coach uses technology. When I started 1.5 years ago I started with lessons and my first guy was old school, no tech. I got some solid foundations but I didn't know any difference then. Fast forwarding to a year later and now I have a second coach and he uses alot of video, flight monitors, and a k vest to help define what is actually going wrong. To me the old school type that aren't using technology are just missing out on massive tools that help get to the root of the issue very quickly, instead of you paying for 10 lessons to re go through a bunch of foundational crap. I've had two lessons with this new guy and i'm seeing a legit 30 yard carry difference in my irons and driver, and am kicking myself I didn't start with them. TWO LESSONS...30 YARDS. I'm not joking. But there is more to it...

I also got a $600 set up at home for Christmas with a net, mat, and a MLM Rapsodo so I can practice everything that comes out of my lessons, and it has been absolutely massive. I never thought a budget flight monitor would have so much value and it has been massive. I'm already thinking about upgrading to mevo+ or skytrak. I find the data and video to be so key to figuring out what is going on. I spent hours at the range last fall and it did nothing for me in comparison.
 
TLuke said:
A little off topic, but with all the golf instruction information now available I wonder how my dad learned to play golf in the early 60’s on a 9 hole goat track in rural Iowa. He had none of what we have now, but he was quite the ball striker. Maybe it was self-taught or those Sunday afternoon’s watching golf telecasts on a B&W TV. Maybe he had Hogan’s 5 lessons (circa. 1957). Just don’t know.
Click to expand...
Reminds me of what I've read about Lee Trevino. Apparently he never took lessons and said he never had a coach because he couldn't find one who could beat him. But then I think he grew up caddying on a golf course so I'm sure he was exposed to some good golfers and had plenty of time to work on his game.
 
For me, it has been a combination of visual and feel that works - over the course of my lessons, my instructor would use video to show me what I was doing, then have me do drills and explain the feeling that I was looking for. Sometimes this would involve aids as a reference point so that I would get instant feedback, other times he would tell me to swing to a certain point and stop, and he would then move my arm/hip/etc to how he wanted it to be so that I could feel the difference between what I was currently doing and where I needed to be - the most common one for this was to help me shorten my backswing as it was way too long and causing me problems with consistency

After doing drills he would then video the swing again to show the difference between before and after, and I would be able to use those drills to work on the swing at the range by myself
 
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