The Right Teacher Is Key To Instruction

I took a little break from the blog. It was hard to think of golf while the tragedy of Katrina was unfolding. If you haven't already, think about foregoing a round and contributing the money to Katrina victims instead. And something is bothering you today, just think how much worse off you'd be on a cot in the Astrodome.

Thought we'd take on the golf instructors of the world. If you remember a couple of blogs back, I quoted a statistic (sorry I can't remember where I read it) that the average 18 hole golf score has only improved by half a stroke over the last 30 years. And that's with all the advantages that new technology has brought us. Granted, most of us don't take professional instruction on a regular basis, but there are thousands of instructors out there making a living so enough of us are going to keep them employed. Why, then, hasn't that score dropped more than half a stroke?

If some guy in your league improved his handicap by 8 strokes in one year and credited it to a teacher, tell me half the guys or gals in the league wouldn't beat a path to the instructor's door. So are there good teachers out there and, if so, where?

As in any profession there are those that know and those that don't. How comfortable would you feel just picking a dentist's name out of the phone book and having her go to work on your teeth. I didn't think so! There are plenty of dentists out there, but only a few I want to trust my choppers to. So we can assume that this is the same for golf instructors - a few bad, a few good and most various shades of so so.

Tomorrow we look at good instructors and ourselves as the students. If there are some good instructors out there, and I'm sure there are, how come students aren't lined up in the parking lot and down the road. Who wouldn't part with some serious scratch to get really better at this game? Before you say no, go look at that high priced titanium monster driver in your bag.