Are Golf Lessons Worth It

You’re trying to decide between a new piece of equipment or taking golf lessons.  The shiny new club looks great and the ads say you’ll hit it longer and straighter.  But how long will that last? The last time I bought a new club, the newness wore off quickly.  Does this sounds like you? Then why are you not making an effort to improve the skills you possess so the new club works?  Are you really asking yourself are golf lessons worth it?  You better believe golf lessons are worth it. All golf clubs will only perform as well as your skills allow.  Therefore, if you’re serious about improving your scores, golf lessons are well worth the investment of time and money.

Are Golf Lessons Worth It – Let’s Compare the Minimum Time Investment

For comparison sake, let’s use the 30-minutes for a “minimum” amount of time needed to invest to purchase a club or take a golf lesson.

When you purchase a new club, you’re expecting instant success, instant results, and instant gratification.  Instant means no time invested.  If this is you, I’d like to have some of the magic dust you’re carrying around.  You can’t “expect” a new club to provide immediate improvement of results.  The only exception is if you invest 30-minutes of time being fit for the club you are purchasing. But even if you spend the time to get fit, you won’t really know anything about you or your swing.

During a 30-minute golf lesson, there’s a high likelihood of you learning if:

• If the club or clubs you are currently using are good for you;
• A simple cause to why your current club may not be working based upon how you swing, not how the robot swung the club;
• A solution of an exercise or drill that can improve the possibility of executing better shots;
• A maybe a small amount of repetitions of the drill under the watchful eye of a trained professional to insure you are doing the drill correctly

Notice within this comparison there is no mention of any practice time?

With only a 30-minute investment of time to purchase a club you’ll have little to no understanding of what it will take for you to play to your potential.  The opposite is true if you take a golf lesson. Within a 30-minute golf lesson you’ll have at least a hint to why you swing the way you do.  You’ll definitely know how to make a small improvement to your skills with little to no practice time.

Why?  Because the investment of time you are making is to yourself, not an object that becomes obsolete in a couple seasons.  Understanding why you swing any club the way you provides you an opportunity to make an improvement.  Knowing what potential and limitations you have available makes the game simpler to understand and play, eliminating stupid mistakes.

A short-term investment of time into yourself will always pay the bigger dividends, no matter the subject or sport.  Also worth noting, short-term investments of any kind carry the highest risks. Short-term investment do not always result in the best or highest reward promised.  It’s up to you to spend the time to insure any invest of your time is well spent.

Within this comparison are Golf Lessons worth it?  Taking just one, you bet they are!

Are Golf Lessons Worth It – Let’s Compare a Minimum Monetary Investment

At a minimum, a high quality new golf club will cost $129 or more.  Let’s round that $125 and compare.

For $125, we can purchase a high quality wedge at best.  For a driver, $500+, and for a set of irons, $1200+.  Regardless, a new golf club is like receiving a birthday gift and its not your birthday.  You feel like a kid again. Taking the club out of the box and shrink wrap can do that to you.  As you do so, you can’t wait to try it out.  What you’re counting on is the club living up to the information you’ve read, no matter the source.

It’s likely the first round with the new club may produce a few extra good shots than normal.  But based on consumer surveys and surveys I conduct with my clientele, once the newness wares off, it’s just another club.  Another club you’ll experience difficulties with.  Why, because the same golfer is swinging the club.

Chances are you’re going to spend a lot more than $125 for a new golf club.  You could pay $1M for a club, and the same would hold true.  As the saying suggests, it may not be the arrow, but the person pulling the bow that shoots the arrow.

For $125, you can purchase a high quality golf lesson of 60-minutes from a reputable professional.  Chances are this professional will use some type of technology to assist with the diagnosis of you as a golfer, and your swing tendencies.

In addition to the items mentioned about the 30-minute golf lesson, you’ll likely have practice time with your golf coach.  Practice time will reinforce the skills you’re building.

All this equates to sustained improvement that will outlast any new club purchase.  Why? Because you are addressing the root cause why a club is not working, you.

Within this comparison are Golf Lessons worth it?  Absolutely, for all the right reasons!

7 Tips to Insure Golf Lessons are Worth Your Investment of Time and Money

You’re now convinced that purchasing golf lessons is something worth investing in, for yourself.  Here are 7 tips that will assist you with insuring the time and money you invest will be well worth it:

1. Be Sure to Find the Best Golf Coach for You – Creating a relationship with the right coach that meets your needs is extremely important.  I wrote an a piece for PGA.com a few years ago that still applies today.  Click Here to view that piece and learn how to find the best golf coach for you.
2. Know Your Budget – Like any major purchase, staying within your budget is important.  Golf Lessons are not any different.  If you’re interested in sustained, long-lasting improvement, it’s best to budget for more than 1 golf lesson.  Doing so allows you to benchmark your progress along the way as well as address more than on aspect of your skills for improvement.  As you set your budget, keep in mind more experienced and qualified golf coaches charge more for their time.  And like other investments, you’ll most likely get what you pay for with any golf lesson.
3. Do You have the Time to Practice – Committing to taking golf lessons does require a time commitment beyond the lesson itself to practice what you learn.  In almost all cases, one lesson builds upon a previous lesson.  In other words, Golf Lesson are a “building block” process.  Not practicing the drills and exercises provided you by your golf coach will lead to repeating one or more lessons over the course of time.  If you don’t practice what you are taught between golf lessons, taking another lesson is a waste of time. Be sure that you can commit a minimum amount of practice between golf lessons.  Doing so insures you have a better chance of making sustainable progress.
4. Set Achievable Goals – Taking a golf lesson without at least one specific goal is like trying to shoot a gun with no exact target.  If your’e going to invest your time in taking golf lessons, you need to have specific goals improvement goals in mind.  Your goals don’t have to be big.  It’s best that your goals are small and incremental, so you can feel a sense of accomplishment.  Like taking golf lessons, each goal should build upon another.  And goals do not have to be based upon score alone.  Some of the simplest goals to achieve could be making the ball fly higher.  Or making 3 putts in a row from 4 feet when practicing.  The more you set goals that are simple yet a slight challenge to accomplish, the more likely you’ll continue to inspire yourself to continue your progress.  For more this, you should read my blog post from 5 years ago about Setting Goals 
5. Keep an Open Mind – Like any learning opportunity, going into the experience with preconceived notions about what you should accomplish can lead to disastrous consequences.  Remember you’ve hired a well-qualified and experienced professional to assist you.  Create a dialogue with the coach that maps a plan that best suits your time commitment, budget, as well as your improvement expectations.  Along the way, insure you are ready to learn something new about yourself and about golf.  Most of my clients who start a series of coaching sessions with me, who think they know what they need, are often surprised by how the priorities of learning and skill building will play a role within their improvement process.  You’ll often hear golf being a game of opposites.  This can also hold true to how you’ll improve your skills, by doing opposite, or inverting a priority list, to obtain the long-term sustainable success you are in search of.  Keeping an open mind allows these ideal to take shape and grow in your mind and body.  Without those seeds sown, you will not realize the goals you are looking to achieve.
6. Understand Improvement Takes Time – As mentioned previously, all good things come with time.  Often I’ll have a client tell me how much time they’ve spent practicing in between their coaching sessions, eluding a feeling of frustration that their goals have yet to be achieved.  When this happens, I remind them that it may only take one more practice session for the improvement to take shape.  If they keep patient, time will reward them for their effort.  Think about all the skills you’ve learned throughout your life.  Are their any that came ready out of the box to use?  You most likely spent enough time and effort to master the minimum of skills to be proficient and successful.  Do the same favor for your golf game.
7. Schedule Lessons Regularly – For sustainable improvement of skills it will most likely include multiple golf lessons.  One lesson can band aid an issue.  But like all band aids, when wet, they fall off.  Scheduling golf lessons regularly between achieving certain goals allows for those goals achieved to be sharpened, while also focusing on new goals to obtain.  Like a doctor scheduling you for a follow up, discuss the proper length of time between lessons with your golf coach.  With some aspects of your game, you may not need as much time between lessons to practice simpler skills.  With more complex skills, it may require more practice time on your own and a little bit more time between lessons to insure the building block strategy stays in tact for your improvement.

Conclusion

Are Golf Lessons Worth It!  If you haven’t figured out by now, yes!  Especially if you plan to pay more than $500 for any piece of equipment.

Yes, I’m bias, but Golf Lessons are worth it.  Golf Lessons are worth your time investment.  All good things come with time and purchasing a new club only procrastinated the inevitable.  Be willing to spend some time on yourself to become a better golfer.  Are Golf Lessons worth your monetary investment?  You’ll gain longer term ROI by taking golf lessons that applies to any and all future purchased of golf clubs.  You are the common thread behind all the clubs you’ve used to date and in the future.  Making a monetary investment in you to understand how you swing and understand your potential will always lead to a long-lasting passion to challenge yourself by playing golf.