Should you have to be a PGA Pro to teach golf ?

Would you want you anyone other than a trained solicitor to defend you in court. Maybe your mate the plumber could do it because he's seen a few re-runs of Crown Court. Daft question. If you want the best advice in ay walk of life go to the professional in that field. Simples
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But then again, this can work the other way.

Who makes the best shop manager?
a) The guy who started on the shop floor at 16 and work his way up to manager.
b) The graduate who took a gap year, went to uni and studied retail management and has never worked in a shop in their life?

Who makes the best plumber?
a) The guy that has no formal qualifications, but has been doing it 20 years.
b) The guy who just completed his 6 week plumbing course.

The examples above are pretty extreme, but I think the point is it depends on the individual. You can have great instructors of both varieties.

I would imagine most good instructors choose to become PGA members anyway, as it makes them more marketable, but that doesn't automatically mean any PGA member is better than any non-member. In fact I am pretty sure a few of the coaches to tour players are not PGA members, if its good enough for them...
 
I think the confusion is caused by the term PGA 'Professional' instead of PGA Coach. Generally speaking most other sports have a tiered education traing structure with coaches at varying grades. In Golf the system is simple: display a degree of competence in play and then get trained in how to develop other people. As with all sports there are those that excel at tuition and others that are not as good. Personally my only issue is persistence at calling them Professionals and not Coaches.
 
You should be able to get a lesson from whomever you want to, likewise if you want your car fixed you can call the AA OR let your neighbour who knows a thing or two about cars fix it.

I'd happily teach S&T to anyone as I'm confident in doing so, it just depends how confident you are at learning..... you can't teach anyone who doesn't want to listen.
 
If the PGA was scrapped tomorrow and it was left open to anyone who fancied having a crack at teaching, I guarantee that within 12 months, an equivalent organisation would be formed, as good teachers, who are tired of the cowboys, banded together to inititiate some standards and accreditation.

Trade organisations exist for a good reason... to protect the service providers AND customers from sub-standard operators.
 
If the PGA was scrapped tomorrow and it was left open to anyone who fancied having a crack at teaching, I guarantee that within 12 months, an equivalent organisation would be formed, as good teachers, who are tired of the cowboys, banded together to inititiate some standards and accreditation.

Trade organisations exist for a good reason... to protect the service providers AND customers from sub-standard operators.
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Or maybe it's a boys own club. Who protects the punters from crappy teaching pros?
 
The PGA qualification covers far more than teaching, it has a lot to do with running a pro shop, equipment fitting, repairs and where to put the Mars Bars in the fridge for maximising sales :)

It's a qualification for those who want an active career in golf, worth having if you want a shot at having your own pro shop one day.
 
For me the answer is in Bob's signature

"Qualified PGA Professional". Emphasis on "qualified".

I would also say there is a huge differnce between advice and teaching.

As an example. A couple of weeks back I had developed a habbit of hitting my iron tee shots a little fat, my old fella, who plays off 20 noticed what I was doing wrong and let me know. Since then very few heavy contacts.

Now for me that's fine, he has no formal qualification, but noticed what I was doing wrong so his advice helped.

However

Would I go to my dad to improve my pitching, putting, or building more lag into my down swing. Absolutely not. As I said in a previous thread yeaterday, I would rather spend a little cash learning how to do the aspect of improvement correctly, rather than wasting hours and hundreds of balls at the range ingraining bad habbits.

We're all qualified to give advice, it happens on here every day. We're not all qualified to teach.
 
The Pga is a reconised qualification in the industry.
And there are other reconised qualifications in all other industries.
Usually when using these you have some sort of guarentee that your getting the best in there field.
So imo you have to decide wether you want the work guaranteed or not.
Bob yesterday put up two pictures,one of Luke and one of Lee putting.
Last night i played with the best putter at our club,and i asked him for a putting tip.
He made me putt,then told me to bring my left arm closer to my body,exactly what Bob advised.
The cost was obviously nothing,he is not a pro,just a very good putter.
So imo you dont have to pay for good advice,experience is also essential.
 
As an example. A couple of weeks back I had developed a habbit of hitting my iron tee shots a little fat, my old fella, who plays off 20 noticed what I was doing wrong and let me know. Since then very few heavy contacts.

Now for me that's fine, he has no formal qualification, but noticed what I was doing wrong so his advice helped.

However

Would I go to my dad to improve my pitching, putting, or building more lag into my down swing. Absolutely not. As I said in a previous thread yeaterday, I would rather spend a little cash learning how to do the aspect of improvement correctly, rather than wasting hours and hundreds of balls at the range ingraining bad habbits.

We're all qualified to give advice, it happens on here every day. We're not all qualified to teach.
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Just because your dad off 20 doesn't have the knowledge to teach you those things does not mean there are not other amateurs how do have that knowledge.
 
As an example. A couple of weeks back I had developed a habbit of hitting my iron tee shots a little fat, my old fella, who plays off 20 noticed what I was doing wrong and let me know. Since then very few heavy contacts.

Now for me that's fine, he has no formal qualification, but noticed what I was doing wrong so his advice helped.

However

Would I go to my dad to improve my pitching, putting, or building more lag into my down swing. Absolutely not. As I said in a previous thread yeaterday, I would rather spend a little cash learning how to do the aspect of improvement correctly, rather than wasting hours and hundreds of balls at the range ingraining bad habbits.

We're all qualified to give advice, it happens on here every day. We're not all qualified to teach.
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Just because your dad off 20 doesn't have the knowledge to teach you those things does not mean there are not other amateurs how do have that knowledge.
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So what you are saying is if you want help on a technical area of your swing, to use my example building in more lag, amateur advice is equivilent (sp) in experiance, method, ethos, knowledge to a teaching pro.

Sorry I dont agree. Then again that's the point of a debate.

An amateur may well know how they do it, how they swing, but does that make it correct for teaching?
 
Can i just look at it from a different angle if at junior soccer level you had to be QUALIFIED to teach soccer how would it survive at grass roots level, what i will say is if you want to charge people to teach them, then yes, you should be qualified to provide the service you are selling , does it make you better ? mayb not , but if you are charging for a service you are noy qualified for then in my view your a chancer .
 
As an example. A couple of weeks back I had developed a habbit of hitting my iron tee shots a little fat, my old fella, who plays off 20 noticed what I was doing wrong and let me know. Since then very few heavy contacts.

Now for me that's fine, he has no formal qualification, but noticed what I was doing wrong so his advice helped.

However

Would I go to my dad to improve my pitching, putting, or building more lag into my down swing. Absolutely not. As I said in a previous thread yeaterday, I would rather spend a little cash learning how to do the aspect of improvement correctly, rather than wasting hours and hundreds of balls at the range ingraining bad habbits.

We're all qualified to give advice, it happens on here every day. We're not all qualified to teach.
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Just because your dad off 20 doesn't have the knowledge to teach you those things does not mean there are not other amateurs how do have that knowledge.
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So what you are saying is if you want help on a technical area of your swing, to use my example building in more lag, amateur advice is equivilent (sp) in experiance, method, ethos, knowledge to a teaching pro.

Sorry I dont agree. Then again that's the point of a debate.

An amateur may well know how they do it, how they swing, but does that make it correct for teaching?
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Did you read anything I posted in this thread? I can absolutely guarantee that there are countless guys and girls out there who have more knowledge of the golf swing - many different models actually - than many pros. There are many pros who couldn't even tell you the difference between the two release patterns. If you see a pro who doesn't understand these things or tries to teach you fundamentals for a pattern he/she idolises rather than the best for you you're screwed for years potentially.

Some pros are GREAT, some are AWFUL. Same for amateur swing theorists.
 
I can absolutely guarantee that there are countless guys and girls out there who have more knowledge of the golf swing - many different models actually - than many pros
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This may be so, however if this is the case why do professional players have swing coaches?

Surely a pro, playing the game for a living, would have superior technical swing knowledge to any amateur after all it's their livelyhood (sp).

It may just be a tweak here and there but would they trust another playing professional to give them correct advice?


If you see a pro who doesn't understand these things or tries to teach you fundamentals for a pattern he/she idolises rather than the best for you you're screwed for years potentially.
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100% agree with this.

Which is why finding a good pro, who understands your goals/needs/swing is a must.

Sean Foley and Tiger Woods??
 
This may be so, however if this is the case why do professional players have swing coaches?
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Ask Bubba Watson

Surely a pro, playing the game for a living, would have superior technical swing knowledge to any amateur after all it's their livelyhood (sp).

It may just be a tweak here and there but would they trust another playing professional to give them correct advice?
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Most pros have coaches, but not all of these coaches are PGA pros.

Would you take short game or putting lessons from Dave Stockton or Dave Pelz?
 
Most pros have coaches, but not all of these coaches are PGA pros.

Would you take short game or putting lessons from Dave Stockton or Dave Pelz?
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Dave Stockton is a former tour pro so he will have had some form of tutoring or coaching from top level coaches so In short Yes I would. That's like asking "Would you take a short game lesson from Luke Donald?"

Dave Pelz, although not a tour pro nor PGA qualified pro, went to college on a golf scholorship. Couple this with his many years (probably from when he started precept golf in the 70's) of observation and study of professional players, again, of course I would take lessons from him.

While I see the point you are making, is it really relivant to the OP's post which I assume is he is talking about average Joe at his/her local course.
 
Here is an issue then.

If the method being taught is outside of the PGA norm, ie: what Foley is teaching, or Plummer and Bennett with S&T, ot the linear method, what ever, how do these guys get qualified (they can invent their own, but can never be PGA acreditted).

The PGA pretty much teaches a conventional swing, which may be fine for some pupils, but others may take to golf far quicker using a less traditional method. If you only take lessons from a PGA coach, then you could be missing out on something which could revolutionise your game.
 
There isn't a set swing the PGA teach teachers to teach.
They show teachers how to observe the ball flight and using the 5 ball flight laws, help students improve the area they are concerned with.
How they do it is then up to them.
If the teacher can help the student deliver the club to the ball obeying the 5 laws, then it doesn't matter how he does it.

Before I turned pro, I asked around local courses and driving ranges about teaching at their facilities. Without exception, they all insisted on the PGA Qualification.
 
Most pros have coaches, but not all of these coaches are PGA pros.

Would you take short game or putting lessons from Dave Stockton or Dave Pelz?
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Dave Stockton is a former tour pro so he will have had some form of tutoring or coaching from top level coaches so In short Yes I would. That's like asking "Would you take a short game lesson from Luke Donald?"

Dave Pelz, although not a tour pro nor PGA qualified pro, went to college on a golf scholorship. Couple this with his many years (probably from when he started precept golf in the 70's) of observation and study of professional players, again, of course I would take lessons from him.

While I see the point you are making, is it really relivant to the OP's post which I assume is he is talking about average Joe at his/her local course.
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Why wouldn't it be relevant?

I believe the OP was being hypothetical, you know what they say about assuming...
 
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