Instruction
Get the most out of your lessons
I know of a great professional who, mid-way in his career, decided to change his swing. He wanted to be more consistent under pressure and win more major championships. His routine consisted of hitting 300-to-500 balls working with his teacher in the morning, lunch and then to the course. As soon as he would make one of the old swings, he and his teacher would head back to the practice tee. It took the better part of a year to make the change he wanted.
I often give lessons to golfers who leave a one-hour lesson and immediately go play with their regular group for a $5 Nassau or whatever it might be. Out of my own curiosity (and amusement I might add), I often get a golf cart and sneak around to watch things play out. It is enlightening and unbelievably predictable. In most cases, golfers can’t even go two holes without making the old mistakes. By the end of the lesson, the slice was gone– maybe it had even turned into a nice little draw. But almost IMMEDIATELY, the slice comes back for golfers on the course, time after time. Why can’t they take it to the course, they wonder?
There are several reasons, but we should begin with the most obvious: They shouldn’t have gone to the course in the first place! At least not that soon after a lesson! If golfers absolutely have to go to the course, they should go alone. Maybe they could go with a close friend of theirs, but they should NEVER go with their peers (unless they like them so much they want to donate to their beer money).
After most lessons, golfers should spend their majority of their time learning the new swing motion. It is foolish to think that they can make a swing change quickly enough to head straight to the course. Most golfers have been swinging the club a certain way for some 20+ years. They really think they can make a change in an hour? Seriously?
But here is the really interesting part of the story: Most golfers are able to make positive changes very quickly under the guidance of the instructor. That means that they are certainly physically capable of doing it. But because many students have great success during a lesson, they assume (almost always incorrectly) that they have mastered the new move. But it just doesn’t work that way.
On the lesson tee, golfers get feedback on every swing as they are directed through a change. It’s like riding a bike with training wheels. But on the golf course, the training wheels aren’t allowed. Golfers are on their own, and at that point, their new swing can’t hold up without the teacher input. Very often, things get worse.
The reason for this conundrum is that contrary to what most golfers believe, they simply did not “get it” on the lesson tee. They were walked through it; and at that point, it is far too soon to be without the eyes of the teacher. This is why I advise my students to bundle their lessons, because I don’t believe that one lesson gets it done. Take your lessons in a more concentrated package, and keep them up over time.
In a lesson, golfers are fully concentrated on going through the process with their instructor, and they are not so worried about trying to produce a result. That’s the nature of proper practice for a swing change. It’s N.A.T.O. (not attached to outcome) golf, as I call it. Golfers are simply thinking of the changes they’re trying to make and getting the body and/or the club into a new position. So what if it goes 30 yards off line?
As soon as golfers get to the course, however, their whole focus shifts to OUTCOME and getting a RESULT. And as soon as they do that, they have lost all sight of the process. For example, “Turn the shoulders more in the backswing,” as you were working on with your instructor, becomes “How can I save a bogey or NOT hit it in that bunker!” There goes that one-hour lesson right down the drain.
And of course there is our old friend, peer pressure, a golf virus that infects all of us. “I will look so silly if I top this ball into the lake in front of my buddies,” peer pressure tells us. Because who wants to be the worst golfer on the block or in the office? A golfer’s chances of making the new move in the early stages of a swing change are slim and none with peer pressre, and that slim didn’t have a tee time that day.
And then there’s the pencil, every golfers worst enemy. As soon a someone is standing there with that little lead stub with no eraser, counting all a golfer’s shots, all hell breaks loose. Many golfers shy away from the pressure and say something like, “Oh I’m not keeping score today.” With that attitude, they play pretty well and go to the 19th hole saying, “Hey, If I’d have kept score today, I would have done really well.” Image that!
Here’s the deal: If you are committed to changing some things and playing better down the road, spend way more time on the practice tee than the course after a lesson. And if you do go to the course, go alone and at a time when you can drop a few balls on each hole and work on the change. Or you may even enjoy a late nine with your spouse in a very non-competitive atmosphere, and work on the new stuff there.
It is difficult to change any motion habit, let alone one as complicated as a golf swing. If you put your jacket on right sleeve first, just try left sleeve first for a week. See how often you catch yourself doing it the old way. You know you CAN do it, but your body is screaming, “But this is the way I’ve always done it.”
If you’d really like to get the most out of a golf lesson or golf school, walk the walk don’t just talk the talk. Take a month or even a season and commit to the change without reservation. A lifetime of better golf awaits if you do.
As always, feel free to send a swing video to my Facebook page and I will do my best to give you my feedback.
The LPGA Tour is kicking off its 2026 season this week at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Orlando, and the pros are dealing with something most Florida golfers rarely face: freezing temperatures.
“It’s colder here than in the UK at the minute, which is a first,” said England’s Charley Hull during Wednesday’s media day at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions.
Even Lydia Ko, who lives at Lake Nona, seemed surprised by the cold snap. “We’re pretty much getting to below zero in celsius here, which maybe in other parts of the country they would be thankful, but when you’re in Florida it is a little bit of a surprise,” she said.
If the world’s best players are adjusting their games for cold weather, recreational golfers should, too. Here’s how to play smart when the mercury drops.
Understand What Cold Does to Your Game
Before you change anything, you need to know what you’re fighting against. Cold air is denser than warm air, which means your ball won’t fly as far. Period.
Hull noticed this immediately during practice rounds at Lake Nona. She mentioned hitting a gap wedge into the 18th hole during a previous win but needing a 4-iron during Tuesday’s practice round. That’s a difference of four or five clubs for the same shot.
Action item: Expect to lose 5-10 yards on every club in your bag when temperatures dip below 50 degrees. Plan accordingly and don’t be stubborn about club selection.
Layer Up Without Restricting Your Swing
Hull admitted she wore three pairs of pants during practice. While that might be extreme for most of us, staying warm is critical to playing well in cold conditions.
Your muscles need warmth to function properly. When you’re cold, your body tightens up and your swing gets shorter and faster. Neither of those things help you hit good golf shots.
Action item: Wear multiple thin layers instead of one bulky jacket. Look for golf-specific cold weather gear that stretches with your swing. Keep hand warmers in your pockets between shots. And don’t forget a good hat because you lose significant body heat through your head.
Take More Club Than You Think You Need
This is where ego gets in the way of good scores. When it’s cold, the ball doesn’t compress as well off the clubface. Combined with denser air, you’re looking at serious distance loss.
The pros at Lake Nona are dealing with a course that measures 6,642 yards but plays much longer this week. If they’re adjusting, you should too.
Action item: Take at least one extra club on every approach shot. In temperatures below 40 degrees, consider taking two extra clubs. It’s better to fly the ball to the back of the green than to come up short in a bunker.
Adjust Your Expectations on the Greens
Cold weather affects putting in ways most golfers don’t consider. The ball is harder and doesn’t roll as smoothly. Your hands are cold, making it harder to feel the putter. And if there’s any moisture on the greens, they’ll be slower than normal.
Ko mentioned that she still sometimes reads the greens wrong at Lake Nona despite being a member for years. Cold weather makes that challenge even tougher.
Action item: Hit putts more firmly than usual. The ball needs extra speed to hold its line on cold greens. Take a few extra practice strokes to get a feel for the speed before you putt.
Embrace the Mental Challenge
Hull said something interesting about cold weather golf: “I like the mental toughness of it.”
That’s the right attitude. Everyone on the course is dealing with the same conditions. The player who stays patient and doesn’t get frustrated by the extra difficulty will come out ahead.
Action item: Lower your expectations by a few strokes. If you normally shoot 85, accept that 90 might be a good score in 40-degree weather. Focus on solid contact and smart decisions rather than perfect shots.
Warm Up Longer and Smarter
This might be the most important tip of all. Cold muscles are tight muscles, and tight muscles get injured easily.
World No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul revealed she’s been protecting a wrist injury that bothered her late last season. Cold weather makes those kinds of injuries more likely if you don’t prepare properly.
Action item: Spend at least 20 minutes warming up before your round. Start with stretching, then hit easy wedge shots before working up to your driver. Keep moving between shots on the course to maintain body heat and flexibility.
The pros at Lake Nona this week will adapt and compete at the highest level despite the cold. You can do the same at your local course by following these tips and keeping a positive attitude.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “Playing Through” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
Brooks Koepka is back on the PGA Tour, and whether you love him or hate him, the guy knows how to win when it matters. After his LIV Golf stint, the five-time major champion returns this week at the Farmers Insurance Open.
What makes Koepka fascinating? He doesn’t fit the mold. His swing isn’t textbook. He doesn’t obsess over mechanics. Yet he’s won three PGA Championships and two U.S. Opens, regularly making it look easier than guys with prettier swings.
So, what can average golfers learn from someone who treats the game so differently? Quite a bit.
Stop Overthinking Every Shot
Koepka describes his approach as “reactionary” rather than mechanical. While most tour pros grind over swing thoughts, Brooks sees the target and hits it. No mental checklist.
This might be the most valuable lesson for weekend golfers who’ve watched too many YouTube swing videos.
How to actually do this:
On the range, hit five balls where you stare at the target for three seconds prior to addressing the ball. Don’t think about grip or stance. Just burn that target into your brain. You’ll be shocked at how pure you hit it when your brain focuses on where the ball is going instead of how you’re swinging.
Next time you play, give yourself a rule: Once you pull the club, you’ve got 15 seconds to hit. Koepka is one of the fastest players on tour because he doesn’t give his brain time to sabotage him.
If you feel tension in your hands at address, you’re trying to control too much. Koepka’s grip pressure is famously light. Loosen up until the club almost feels like it might slip, then add just enough pressure to hold on. That’s your swing thought: soft hands, see the target.
This approach works better under pressure. When you’re standing over that shot with water left and OB right, the last thing you need is a mental checklist. See it, feel it, hit it.
Play to Your Strengths (Even If They’re Not Pretty)
Koepka uses a strong grip that wouldn’t pass muster in some teaching circles. But he’s built his game around what works for him, elite driving distance and recovery skills. He doesn’t try to be someone he’s not.
Here’s how to build your game like Brooks:
Look at your last five rounds and figure out where you’re actually gaining strokes. Bombing it off the tee, but can’t hit greens? Lean into it. Play courses where distance matters more than precision. On tight holes, grip down on your 3-wood instead of trying to thread a driver through a keyhole you’ll miss seven times out of ten.
Koepka knows he can scramble, so he’s not afraid to miss greens. If you’re deadly from 50 to 75 yards, start leaving yourself those distances on the par 5’s instead of going for them in two every time.
Know when to take your medicine. Koepka in the trees at the PGA? He’s punching out to 100 yards, not trying to bend a 6-iron around three oaks. You’re in the rough with a flyer lie and water short? Hit your 8-iron to the middle and move on. That’s not playing scared, that’s playing smart.
Save Your Best for When It Counts
Here’s a wild stat: Koepka’s putting average in majors is often more than a full stroke better per round than in regular events. He elevates when pressure is highest.
How does an amateur tap into that gear? It’s not about trying harder, it’s about caring differently.
Here’s what actually works:
Decide which rounds matter to you. Club championship? Member-guest? That annual trip with college buddies? Circle those dates and treat them differently. Koepka doesn’t care much about regular tour events, but majors? That’s when he locks in.
Two weeks before your big round, change your practice. Stop beating balls mindlessly. Play nine holes in which every shot has consequences. Miss the fairway? Hit from the rough on the next hole too. Three-putt? Twenty push-ups. Koepka’s practice intensity ramps up before majors because he’s rehearsing pressure, not just swings.
Develop a between-shot routine that resets your brain. Koepka is famous for his blank expression after bad shots. Try this: After any shot, take three deep breaths while walking, then find something specific to notice, a tree, a cloud, someone’s shirt. That’s your reset button. By the time you reach your ball, the last shot is gone.
The Bottom Line
Brooks Koepka’s return reminds us there’s no single path to success in golf. His “substance over style” approach proves that results matter more than looking good.
You don’t need a perfect swing; you need a reliable one that holds up under pressure. You don’t need to hit every shot in the book; you need the shots you can count on. And you don’t need to play great every time; you need to play great when it matters.
Welcome back, Brooks. Thanks for the reminder that golf is ultimately about getting the ball in the hole, not winning style points.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “Playing Through” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
Blades Brown made a big impression last week in the California desert, and not just because he’s only 18. He put up numbers that would catch any weekend golfer’s attention. Most of us won’t hit 317-yard drives or find 86% of our greens in regulation, but there’s a lot to learn from how Brown managed his game at The American Express.
Here are three practical lessons from his performance that you can use on your own course this weekend.
Step 1: Give Priority to Accuracy Over Distance Off The Tee
Brown’s driving stats are impressive. He averaged almost 318 yards off the tee, ranking 12th in the field. More importantly, he hit 76.79% of his fairways, tying for fourth place in the tournament.
Think about that ratio for a second. Brown could have swung harder, chased more distance and tried to overpower the course. Instead, he played smart golf and kept his ball in play.
Your Action Item: Next time you’re on the tee box, ask yourself a simple question before pulling the driver. Do you need maximum distance here, or do you need to be in the fairway? If there’s trouble lurking or the hole doesn’t demand every yard you can muster, take something off your swing. Grip down an inch. Make a three-quarter swing. Do whatever it takes to find the short grass. Brown’s approach illustrates that fairways lead to greens, and greens lead to birdies. He made 22 of them last week, along with an eagle.
The math is simple. When you’re hitting three out of every four fairways like Brown did, you’re giving yourself legitimate looks at the green with your approach shots. That’s when scoring happens.
Step 2: Commit To Hitting More Greens
This is where Brown really separated himself. He hit 62 of 72 greens in regulation, an 86.11% clip that tied for first in the entire field. Read that again. An 18-year-old kid tied for the lead in one of the most important ball-striking statistics in professional golf.
How did he do it? By keeping his ball in the fairway (see Step 1) and giving himself clean looks with mid-irons and wedges.
Your Action Item: Start tracking your greens in regulation. You don’t need a fancy app or a statistics degree. Just mark down whether you hit the green in the regulation number of strokes. Par 3s in one shot. Par 4s in two shots. Par 5s in three shots.
Once you know your baseline, set a goal to improve it by 10%. If you’re currently hitting five greens per round, aim for six. The beauty of this approach is that it forces you to think strategically about club selection and shot shape. Brown’s strokes gained approach number was positive (0.179), meaning he was better than the field average. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be on the dance floor more often.
When you hit more greens, you eliminate the need for heroic short game shots. Brown only had to scramble 10 times all week, and he got up and down 70% of the time. That’s solid, but the real story is that he rarely put himself in scrambling situations to begin with.
Step 3: Minimize Mistakes And Stay Patient
Here’s the stat that jumps off the page: Brown made only three bogeys all week. Three. In four rounds of professional golf against the best players in the world.
He also made just one double bogey. That kind of clean card doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when you play within yourself, avoid the big miss and trust that pars are never bad scores.
Your Action Item: Before your next round, decide that you’re going to play boring golf. No hero shots over water. No driver on tight holes just because you can. No aggressive pins when there’s a safe side of the green.
Brown’s performance shows us that consistency beats flash every single time. He didn’t lead the field in any single strokes gained category, but he was solid across the board. That’s how you post numbers and cash checks.
Give these three steps a try. Your scorecard will thank you.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “The Starter” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
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Jesse
Dec 22, 2013 at 2:26 pm
Old swing habits can creep back even years after you made a change. I was in college and simply was laying the club off on takeway, my instructor basically made me stay in certain positions until it actually started to hurt because i held it so long. Played great for about 5 yrs then i stopped working on it and took a couple months off and no more range. Only play 2-4 times and month now, guess what my swing is exactly the same as it was before my lessons again. Went from a 9, to +1 and now i struggle to break 80, as all the old habits have crept back.
Double Mocha Man
Dec 19, 2013 at 10:42 pm
I never expect what works on the range to work on the course. And vice versa. The range and the course are two different games. The best stuff I’ve learned I learned on the course.
naflack
Dec 20, 2013 at 2:39 am
+1
P
Dec 22, 2013 at 11:29 am
Double Mocha Man,
That is, IF you are already a good ball striker. Please don’t be telling that to beginners.
Dan
Sep 4, 2021 at 11:36 pm
The best stuff I’ve learned on the course, I’ve also lost on the course.
Rich
Dec 19, 2013 at 6:10 pm
After committing to a series of lessons my instructor asked that I not play until the series was over, and since the lessons were full swing he recommended that I not practice the changes but use time away from instruction to practice putting instead. Two sessions of one hour a week for eight weeks made my putting improve WAY more than the full swing lessons. Best lesson I ever received.
naflack
Dec 20, 2013 at 2:45 am
so it wasnt enough that you committed to a series of lessons…?
that instructor has some serious onions.
Adam
Dec 18, 2013 at 3:49 pm
i agree 100% with this, i got a lesson that changed my whole swing in early august and spent the better part of a week straight hitting golf balls on the range, before my dad got bored and wanted to go play. take the time to let your lesson sink in and be able to do it by yourself repeatedly.
paul
Dec 18, 2013 at 12:05 pm
I had a lesson that changed everything for me. I folllwed it up by playing a round of virtual golf the next day (-40 degrees outside) and did 10 strokes better. now that i have had a year to work some mlre on what i learned i shot 80. Lucky i guess.
Ian Bainbridge
Dec 18, 2013 at 2:22 am
If people felt a major improvement in their game from having a lesson then they may commit to the process, but not many feel they have that change. If teachers could keep it simple and get the basic fundamentals into a golfer then we would all improve. How many golfers turn up for a lesson, feel they don’t get much, and go back to the old swing fault?
If people swung in and up on way back, and down and out on way through, most of us would have a nice baby draw instead of the fade/slice 80% of us have. That and not trying to knock the cover off the ball 😉
naflack
Dec 17, 2013 at 10:35 pm
Good stuff…
Definitely take any opportunity to practice on the course.
If its slow and you’re a single hit a couple extra shots here and there where time allows.
Some of my best practice rounds haves come playing with my wife, she couldn’t care less about what I’m doing and how well I’m doing it.
Andrew Adamonis
Dec 17, 2013 at 4:21 pm
Boy this sounds like me. I never go right to the course after a lesson, but my swing changes do tend to fall apart after several holes. Makes me think that improvement in golf just takes too much time and money. Wish there was an easier way.