Are Golf Videos Useful?

I know some people are very big on constantly taking golf lessons. Personally, I am not. I was taught by my father, took tips from people on the course and at the driving range and figured it out. The ranges local to me starting out were all hitting off mats, and I am just not a fan of it. Now social media has been added to the mix.

As far as my friends and people I meet who take lessons, the results seem hit or miss. I played one round with someone, and he played great. I did notice he was making it all kind of complicated applying what he learned. I met other people who tried lessons from the same pro, and they complained he completely ruined their game. I’ve seen other people ‘bragging’ on their lessons, and they made me look like Tiger Woods. I decided to pass on the lessons.

Occasionally, you will meet people on the course who decide it will be fun to try and ‘fix’ your game and start giving tips, try to change your swing and anything else you can think of. I’ve commented on this before, but my advice is to run away. This has never led to a good round.

I had a friend give me some tips. This is more the exception to the rule. Playing with other friends, they had told me I was hitting the grass before the ball, but I didn’t understand it at the time. My helpful friend had me take a few practice strokes, taking divots. Based off where I was lined up, I was lining up mid stance, but hitting off my back foot. He adjusted my stance, and I started hitting the ball in the air consistently, and added significant yardage. He also tweaked my aim. Aside from that, he left my game alone.

Now let’s look at some video examples. Be warned, you might need to go through a bunch before you find one that will help. My first example, I could not get a chip to go in the air. I came across a vid that started off with a question ‘Do you hold your club like this? I thought about it, and yes, I tilt the club. His solution, hold your club straight. I tried it, now people compliment my short game. My 9 iron, pitching wedge and gap wedge are now my best clubs.

Another issue I have is I slice bad. I couldn’t even keep the ball on the hole I was playing; to the point I used an iron off the tee. I skimmed videos, most just say do this, this and that… They didn’t help. I finally came one where the guy started, is your grip like this? Mine was. He showed a simple adjustment, and it cut out about 75% of my slice. Adjusting my aim for it, I hit about 60% of fairways off the tee, and it is getting better.

I tackle my issues 1 at a time, but there are videos for pretty much everything. I keep looking until I find one that addresses what I am doing wrong. I consider about 60% kind of worthless, because I can’t find what I need to correct. My biggest surprise is how easy some of my flaws are to fix.

By Sebastian Wyczawski