Length of Lessons?

[sev112]

Best thing you can ever do is get your swing on camera from the front and down-the-line. It'll let you see what your swing really looks like

Can't disagree with this at all, but i have always thought that the best view for anyone to work out how a good swing works, and how a "normal" swing doesn't, would be an overhead view - and similarly i would think magazines could help with swing sequences if they showed overhead photographs .

Because it should be much easier to understand where the club shaft should be on the take away, and then particularly approaching impact from the inside.
If you can show an amateur where the club shaft really should be pointing approaching impact, it will make a huge difference to the 90% of the giolfing community who slice/fade. (where no earth did i get that outrageous stat from ???)

Must be a business gap in there somewhere for someone with a very high tripod !

 

[HomerJSimpson]

As someone who is usually critiscised for having too many lessons anyway or using too many teachers this is my take.

The guy I use the most is a top PGA teacher http://www.n1golf.com/n1golftuition/pros-pharrison.asp and I always have an hours with him. I usually get there about 30 minutes beofre hand and hit a small bucket so I'm warmed up when we start. We usually spend 10 minutes discussing progress fromthe last lesson, any issues that have crept into my game etc. He'll give me a rundown of what he thinks needs working on and he'll watch me hit some shots and take footage from the side and back.

We'll look at the video and discuss the good and bad points and he'll decide what needs fixing. He'll usually talk me through it first and demonstrate it and then if there any drills to help, we'll stop and go through these so I get a better feel for the correct motion. As we work through the drills he'll watch me hit shots and take more footage. But the end we'll have a before and after in which I hopefully will be hitting it much better. He'll then e-mail me the footage and a brief synopsis of the lesson and a reminder of the drills and what they are trying to achieve. I'll also write my own lesson notes in Scoresaver 2 with my own thoughts on how the good shots felt etc.

I have also used a club pro from Sand Martins which is are 30 minutes. I have to be honest and tend to use him for quick fixes if I can't get a lesson with my normal teacher. In these circumstances we'll discuss the problem and he'll get the swing on film and talk me through what the main fault is. He's very good at making a quick diagnosis and finding a fix. He doesn't give any of his pupils footage to keep but I guess as a club pro he tends to have an idea about most of the members swing and game anyway.

And the conclusion. Both 30 or 60 minutes work. I guess it's what you want and how you learn. I find I don't get technically overloaded in my longer lessons but have much more time to understand what we're doing, get the drills in my head and feel the shot more. I find this makes it easier to go away after the lesson and replicate it and that the drills tend to get embedded.

The bottom line though is to find a teacher you can work with. It's like anything, just because a guy is a top 25 coach (for example) he may not be the best for you and you may not understand or like the way he teaches. A good old (Bob) fashioned PGA pro may have a simpler approach that works. However what I would say is that a good coach that works for you is a huge asset