Golf Instruction: How NOT to Get Better

I've been spending some time in various golf communities recently and have been fascinated by the number of people that will post a video of their swing and ask for help or comments.

This is an absolute recipe for disaster because every golfer that can get the ball airborne will offer advice a tips. On top of that you have all the armchair instructors that have a subscription to Golf Digest (Golf Digest is OK if you are capable of mimicking a tour player) and watches YouTube videos think they are experts and will jump at the chance to expound on a subject they really know little if anything about.

Taking tips from all these people, magazines, and videos is like going to class every day and having a new instructor every day with little or no background in the subject and none of them talk to each other.

To make bad matters worse, here are typical comments made by golf professionals on some of these sites:

"It's not the vertical force that creates the slowing down necessarily. It's about how big of a moment arm you create, direction of the force vector, not just magnitude, etc..."

"The difference between where your COP is, COM and direction and magnitude of the force vector. The bigger the moment arm, the more speed created. The smaller the less. More factors into play than just vertical force speeding up or slowing down the pelvis or body. If your COP and COM line up over each other, you'll lose speed not gain it."

"Just interesting to me to see people that don't use forceplates comment on proper use of the ground and GRF."

"You have the acceleration and deceleration of segments as well as alignments. The bigger the moment arm between the COM and COP the more speed you can create. You mention the use of vertical force for creating "parametric acceleration and additional club speed"."

"Parametric acceleration is only a minor contributor to club speed, almost not worth mentioning in general conversation. It is generating the first 97-98% of club speed that is most important. Vertical and horizontal forces are both very important for that. I think you meant this, but since parametric acceleration is listed first, I wanted to clarify for those not familiar."

No wonder people are quitting the game and don't get better.  I have one simple code that I live by “Anyone that can't explain the golf swing in a simple, easy to understand fashion is not an "expert".  They are at best just knowledgeable.”

There is some great stuff out there by really great instructors, but it is hard to find.  You can visit my website to find a lot of it or email me.   You can also catch me on Twitter or FaceBook or Google+ and it's all free - no strings attached!