Are lessons the answer

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mickh68

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I'm a struggling 18 hc , going backwards if anything . Thinking about taking a series of lessons through the winter . Anyone done this with a good degree of success?
Also can anyone reccomend a pro in the Bromley / Orpington area ?
 
Only pro I know in the Orpington area is Matt Barber at Chelsfield Lakes, and he's very good. He moved to Surrey Downs a while ago and a couple of guys I know stayed having lessosn with him, even though it was a good 40 minute drive for them.

He's now back as head pro at Chelsfield Lakes. Would thoroughly recommend him.
 
mickh68 said:
I'm a struggling 18 hc , going backwards if anything . Thinking about taking a series of lessons through the winter . Anyone done this with a good degree of success?
Also can anyone reccomend a pro in the Bromley / Orpington area ?
Click to expand...

yep, stuck at 6/7 had lessons this year and now much more consistent had now on the cusp of 4.

What you have to remember is you have to do the work, Pro's are not magicians
 
Yes lessons will help but you have to put the time in between lessons to practice what you have been taught.
A guy at our place took a lesson every week for months and months but has never got any better as he was more interested in drinking than practicing. Biggest thing that annoyed me was his constant moaning about not getting better even though he was paying for lessons.
It's not a quick, easy fix but with time and patience from yourself will see you improve.
Sorry can't help you with who to go to.
 
Yes ,,it was for me... we had group lessons a few winters ago. i was struggling at 18 and after 2 winter training i was at hcp 13. now im at 16!!
The main thing, was that our pro could explain the "keys" and give me a mental pic, how the swing shall be executed!

I know now, my problems in swing. for me its the Chiken wing in my swing path and that is due to problems with stifness and rotation.

But without lessons i had not know how to perfome the swing!!
 
Lessons will help as said in the previous replies, but try to be clear what you want to get out of the lessons and what areas you want to focus on.

I would start with a general MOT of your swing and that will highlight any fundamentals that need to be addressed and then work on the short game, because that is where the scoring counts.

Lessons have helped my game and I can't recommend them highly enough.

Ask yourself this; why do the pros have coaches and trainers?......... Because we all need to work on our game constantly!
 
Paul Page and Ben Blackburn at Kings Hill get very good reviews. The course is 5 mins from the M20 so should be pretty easy for you to get to although not on your door step.
 
patricks148 said:
yep, stuck at 6/7 had lessons this year and now much more consistent had now on the cusp of 4.

What you have to remember is you have to do the work, Pro's are not magicians
Click to expand...
Patrick can you recommend me a good magician, because thats what i need, maybe David Copperwedge.:rofl:


PS , not to make me disappear as some would like .:whistle:
 
Last edited:
mickh68 said:
I'm a struggling 18 hc , going backwards if anything . Thinking about taking a series of lessons through the winter . Anyone done this with a good degree of success?
Also can anyone reccomend a pro in the Bromley / Orpington area ?
Click to expand...

No one would ever say lessons aren't the answer. But like has already been said you need to put time and effort in to learn what you are being taught outside of the lesson. A common thing you always his people going for sone lessons to help them improve, but because they do not put the effort in outside the lesson and get instant results they revert back to what they where doing.

if your looking for a lesson a week I would defiantly advise a couple of trips to the range too, make sure you repeat what you are being taught. No point going back the following week having forgot what you got taught and having to be shown all again.
 
Big advocate of lessons, especially over the winter when courses can be down to nine holes, closed or on temps. Plenty of time to work on the changes and any drills and go out and play without the fear of a competition card in hand to see how the changes work. If things aren't getting better, report it back to the pro and find out why.

I've gone up 0.3 in 2014, but feel I am hitting it so much better than I use to and those that played with me at Cuddington and H4H will see that if I can lose the one or two destructive shots that blight the card there is a great score waiting to come out.

Block lessons over the winter tend to work out cheaper as well and I always find word of mouth is a good barometer of how good a pro is so ask around amongst your playing partners and friends
 
Have a quick look on the net - the GM you tube channel or in the mag for tips and try them out possibly ?
 
Hey Mick..

Good question. I think that as others have suggested - practice is the key. A pro can show you what to, how to..but the first question that you need to answer is whether you are prepared to set in stone the time to practice the various facets of the game.

That's the question I'm considering myself -

And contrary to some humble opinions - 18 handicap is grand - crack on!
 
lessons, knowledge, is the key to getting better. it's then what you do with that information & how you try to put the lessons into practice. pretty impossible to change an instinctive ingrained motion with a different brand new but better motion if you don't but the work in in between the lessons, but that work still has to be approached in the right ways.
just going to the practice ground/range in
between & hitting through balls at your normal swing speed just won't cut it, you'll simply go straight back to your 'old' default action even if you think you're doing something different. you have to be able to monitor carefully what you really are doing not what you think you are doing, to that lots of position drills with mirror work, cell fone recording, then you have to have the discipline to just spend a good bunch of time making real slow motion swings. most of the practice time spent this ways with just a few full motion swings then even more position & slow motion work.
if you can't get the position slow drills down good, then you won't be able to get the slow motion swings down either, so little chance of getting the new position, moves, feels, whatever if might be at full speed.

[video=youtube_share;yPjPhDErgM0]http://youtu.be/yPjPhDErgM0[/video]
 
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