Instruction
The 7 different golf instructors you’ll meet on the range
The best way to improve at golf is to take lessons and practice hard, but selecting the right teacher, while often a difficult task, is crucial to finding success.
Every teacher has a different skill set and personality, much like every student, and sometimes students and teachers just aren’t compatible. As an instructor myself, I’ve examined my own teaching and the teaching of my peers, and I’ve found that most golf instructors are one of 7 types.
Of course, it’s difficult to know exactly which type of coach an instructor is before you actually take a lesson from him or her. The best advice I can give is to make sure you take the time to have a chat with a new instructor before your first lesson. It will help better understand his or her beliefs and personality before moving forward with a swing change.
Now, let’s get to the 7 types of golf instructors, and which ones you should seek (and avoid).
The Analytical Teacher
Analytical teachers use technologies (think Trackman and BodiTrak) as their main tools to get a message across. For them, using these systems is important to helping the student understand their own motions throughout the swing. Familiar terms to this teacher’s students are planes, pivot, impact alignments, etc., and these teachers excel with players who need logical answers to their swing questions, rather than visuals and feels.
Usually, analytical teachers are best for intermediate-to-advanced players, as they tend to move quickly through the basics. Remember that a teacher’s job is to inform and explain to you the what’s and why’s of your swing, not to impress you with what they know… although you do want them to know a lot.
The Feel Teacher
Feel teachers speak in terms of sensations and the reactions to biomechanical motions that produce effective golf swings. They tend to focus on the effects of swing flaws, not the flaws themselves, and they are great for players who are very sensation-orientated.
Students of a feel teacher may complain about a vague explanation when “just feel this” isn’t working. Feel teachers have to rely on what they have felt in their own swings, or what they have been told it feels like to work on certain motions. Some don’t have all the technical answers, but they can get you started on the right track to feeling what it is you need to feel in order to improve.
The Psychological Teacher
As Harvey Penick once said, “Take a pill, but don’t take the whole bottle.” Penick, in fact, is a psychological teacher to the core.
Psychological teachers tend to focus on introspective techniques, allowing students to figure out what needs to be done. And sometimes, their students don’t make progress until after they walk back into the shop. It can take awhile for their lessons to digest.
These teachers tend to be “old-school” players of the game. Sadly, we have all but lost this type of teaching style due to advances in video and computers. Books such as The Inner Game of Golf by Tim Galloway, or the many books from authors like Bob Rotella and Richard Coop all have ideas for improving your current game by simply using your mind more effectively. Easier said than done, of course.
The Model Swing Teacher
Fitting golfers into a swing model works great for some golfers, but can hinder the improvement of others. If you go to a model teacher and you have a similar swing to the model, or a similar body style to what the model strives for, then you’re in the right place. For the player who likes and agrees with the model taught — and who has the physical ability to move as their teacher’s system requires — there is no better kind of teacher in the world. People who agree with position-based golf instruction should go to this type of teacher from day one.
If, however, the system requires a wealth of strength and flexibility, and you can’t touch your toes and haven’t seen a gym in years, going with that model may put your game, or even health, in serious risk.
The Flavor of the Month Teacher
A flavor-of-the-month teacher focuses on teaching the most popular trends on Tour. If Tiger is holding his hips to the top, then so do all this teacher’s students, regardless of their normal hip motions or swing flaws. This teacher is very close to the Model Swing teacher, but his “model” changes frequently.
Be careful of this teacher. To achieve long-term improvement, there must be a logical path to follow, and the direction of your swing change should remain consistent for the most part. It’s important to follow progressions and adapt to body/swing changes, but changing your swing based on “what’s hot” is a sure way to struggle short term and long term.
The “What They Do” Teacher
Most beginning teachers teach golfers what they do in their swing, since that’s what they understand best. Jack Nicklaus said in his famous book, Golf My Way, that his teachings in the book reflected how HE played the game, and what he did may not be best for others.
As these kinds of teachers mature, they usually become more and more like a swing model teacher since they already have their own model in mind. Once again, if they teach a move that you tend to do naturally, then you are in good shape. But be careful, because this teacher’s understanding of the game is limited to their experience. You may run into a wall at some point in your learning process.
The Part-Time Teacher
The part-time teacher is the guy at your local range or course who hits balls all the time. He’s read all the books and taken lessons for years, but he does not necessarily understand most of what he’s read — he simply regurgitates information. This person tends to be a low-to-mid handicapper who knows a few instructional catch phrases and tries to apply them to everyone’s swing.
You should steer away from this type of instruction advice in most any circumstance. There’s probably a reason he or she is not a professional, right? Would you invest your life savings with someone who only worked in investment strategies part time? This is not to say that part-time golf instructors can’t help you, but usually they are giving tips based on results from previous swing flaws they had or have themselves. Save your time and effort for the true professionals who are fully committed to their craft.
There may be no more painful affliction in golf than the “yips” – those uncontrollable and maddening little nervous twitches that prevent you from making a decent stroke on short putts. If you’ve never had them, consider yourself very fortunate (or possibly just very young). But I can assure you that when your most treacherous and feared golf shot is not the 195 yard approach over water with a quartering headwind…not the extra tight fairway with water left and sand right…not the soft bunker shot to a downhill pin with water on the other side…No, when your most feared shot is the remaining 2- 4-foot putt after hitting a great approach, recovery or lag putt, it makes the game almost painful.
And I’ve been fighting the yips (again) for a while now. It’s a recurring nightmare that has haunted me most of my adult life. I even had the yips when I was in my 20s, but I’ve beat them into submission off and on most of my adult life. But just recently, that nasty virus came to life once again. My lag putting has been very good, but when I get over one of those “you should make this” length putts, the entire nervous system seems to go haywire. I make great practice strokes, and then the most pitiful short-stroke or jab at the ball you can imagine. Sheesh.
But I’m a traditionalist, and do not look toward the long putter, belly putter, cross-hand, claw or other variation as the solution. My approach is to beat those damn yips into submission some other way. Here’s what I’m doing that is working pretty well, and I offer it to all of you who might have a similar affliction on the greens.
When you are over a short putt, forget the practice strokes…you want your natural eye-hand coordination to be unhindered by mechanics. Address your putt and take a good look at the hole, and back to the putter to ensure good alignment. Lighten your right hand grip on the putter and make sure that only the fingertips are in contact with the grip, to prevent you from getting to tight.
Then, take a long, long look at the hole to fill your entire mind and senses with the target. When you bring your head/eyes back to the ball, try to make a smooth, immediate move right into your backstroke — not even a second pause — and then let your hands and putter track right back together right back to where you were looking — the HOLE! Seeing the putter make contact with the ball, preferably even the forward edge of the ball – the side near the hole.
For me, this is working, but I am asking all of you to chime in with your own “home remedies” for the most aggravating and senseless of all golf maladies. It never hurts to have more to fall back on!
Over the last couple of decades, golf has become much more science-based. We measure swing speed, smash factor, angle of attack, strokes gained, and many other metrics that can really help golfers improve. But I often wonder if the advancement of golf’s “hard” sciences comes at the expense of the “soft” sciences.
Take, for example, golf instruction. Good golf instruction requires understanding swing mechanics and ball flight. But let’s take that as a given for PGA instructors. The other factors that make an instructor effective can be evaluated by social science, rather than launch monitors.
If you are a recreational golfer looking for a golf instructor, here are my top three points to consider.
1. Cultural mindset
What is “cultural mindset? To social scientists, it means whether a culture of genius or a culture of learning exists. In a golf instruction context, that may mean whether the teacher communicates a message that golf ability is something innate (you either have it or you don’t), or whether golf ability is something that can be learned. You want the latter!
It may sound obvious to suggest that you find a golf instructor who thinks you can improve, but my research suggests that it isn’t a given. In a large sample study of golf instructors, I found that when it came to recreational golfers, there was a wide range of belief systems. Some instructors strongly believed recreational golfers could improve through lessons. while others strongly believed they could not. And those beliefs manifested in the instructor’s feedback given to a student and the culture created for players.
2. Coping and self-modeling can beat role-modeling
Swing analysis technology is often preloaded with swings of PGA and LPGA Tour players. The swings of elite players are intended to be used for comparative purposes with golfers taking lessons. What social science tells us is that for novice and non-expert golfers, comparing swings to tour professionals can have the opposite effect of that intended. If you fit into the novice or non-expert category of golfer, you will learn more and be more motivated to change if you see yourself making a ‘better’ swing (self-modeling) or seeing your swing compared to a similar other (a coping model). Stay away from instructors who want to compare your swing with that of a tour player.
3. Learning theory basics
It is not a sexy selling point, but learning is a process, and that process is incremental – particularly for recreational adult players. Social science helps us understand this element of golf instruction. A good instructor will take learning slowly. He or she will give you just about enough information that challenges you, but is still manageable. The artful instructor will take time to decide what that one or two learning points are before jumping in to make full-scale swing changes. If the instructor moves too fast, you will probably leave the lesson with an arm’s length of swing thoughts and not really know which to focus on.
As an instructor, I develop a priority list of changes I want to make in a player’s technique. We then patiently and gradually work through that list. Beware of instructors who give you more than you can chew.
So if you are in the market for golf instruction, I encourage you to look beyond the X’s and O’s to find the right match!
Most pros take months, even years, to win their first tournament. Lottie Woad needed exactly four days.
The 21-year-old from Surrey shot 21-under 267 at Dundonald Links to win the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open by three shots — in her very first event as a professional. She’s only the third player in LPGA history to accomplish this feat, joining Rose Zhang (2023) and Beverly Hanson (1951).
But here’s what caught my attention as a coach: Woad didn’t win through miraculous putting or bombing 300-yard drives. She won through relentless precision and unshakeable composure. After watching her performance unfold, I’m convinced every golfer — from weekend warriors to scratch players — can steal pages from her playbook.
Precision Beats Power (And It’s Not Even Close)
Forget the driving contests. Woad proved that finding greens matters more than finding distance.
What Woad did:
• Hit it straight, hit it solid, give yourself chances
• Aimed for the fat parts of greens instead of chasing pins
• Let her putting do the talking after hitting safe targets
• As she said, “Everyone was chasing me today, and managed to maintain the lead and played really nicely down the stretch and hit a lot of good shots”
Why most golfers mess this up:
• They see a pin tucked behind a bunker and grab one more club to “go right at it”
• Distance becomes more important than accuracy
• They try to be heroic instead of smart
ACTION ITEM: For your next 10 rounds, aim for the center of every green regardless of pin position. Track your greens in regulation and watch your scores drop before your swing changes.
The Putter That Stayed Cool Under Fire
Woad started the final round two shots clear and immediately applied pressure with birdies at the 2nd and 3rd holes. When South Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim mounted a charge and reached 20-under with a birdie at the 14th, Woad didn’t panic.
How she responded to pressure:
• Fired back with consecutive birdies at the 13th and 14th
• Watched Kim stumble with back-to-back bogeys
• Capped it with her fifth birdie of the day at the par-5 18th
• Stayed patient when others pressed, pressed when others cracked
What amateurs do wrong:
• Get conservative when they should be aggressive
• Try to force magic when steady play would win
• Panic when someone else makes a move
ACTION ITEM: Practice your 3-6 foot putts for 15 minutes after every range session. Woad’s putting wasn’t spectacular—it was reliable. Make the putts you should make.
Course Management 101: Play Your Game, Not the Course’s Game
Woad admitted she couldn’t see many scoreboards during the final round, but it didn’t matter. She stuck to her game plan regardless of what others were doing.
Her mental approach:
• Focused on her process, not the competition
• Drew on past pressure situations (Augusta National Women’s Amateur win)
• As she said, “That was the biggest tournament I played in at the time and was kind of my big win. So definitely felt the pressure of it more there, and I felt like all those experiences helped me with this”
Her physical execution:
• 270-yard drives (nothing flashy)
• Methodical iron play
• Steady putting
• Everything effective, nothing spectacular
ACTION ITEM: Create a yardage book for your home course. Know your distances to every pin, every hazard, every landing area. Stick to your plan no matter what your playing partners are doing.
Mental Toughness Isn’t Born, It’s Built
The most impressive part of Woad’s win? She genuinely didn’t expect it: “I definitely wasn’t expecting to win my first event as a pro, but I knew I was playing well, and I was hoping to contend.”
Her winning mindset:
• Didn’t put winning pressure on herself
• Focused on playing well and contending
• Made winning a byproduct of a good process
• Built confidence through recent experiences:
- Won the Women’s Irish Open as an amateur
- Missed a playoff by one shot at the Evian Championship
- Each experience prepared her for the next
What this means for you:
• Stop trying to shoot career rounds every time you tee up
• Focus on executing your pre-shot routine
• Commit to every shot
• Stay present in the moment
ACTION ITEM: Before each round, set process goals instead of score goals. Example: “I will take three practice swings before every shot” or “I will pick a specific target for every shot.” Let your score be the result, not the focus.
The Real Lesson
Woad collected $300,000 for her first professional victory, but the real prize was proving that fundamentals still work at golf’s highest level. She didn’t reinvent the game — she simply executed the basics better than everyone else that week.
The fundamentals that won:
• Hit more fairways
• Find more greens
• Make the putts you should make
• Stay patient under pressure
That’s something every golfer can do, regardless of handicap. Lottie Woad just showed us it’s still the winning formula.
FINAL ACTION ITEM: Pick one of the four action items above and commit to it for the next month. Master one fundamental before moving to the next. That’s how champions are built.
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” on RG.org 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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alan reid
Jun 30, 2017 at 8:59 pm
golf takes a lot of skill and precison to master. Some coaches have different methods of teaching, some are effective but none compare to http://www.golfcoachtoronto.ca if you are in the Toronto area and need lesson check these guys out.
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Andy
Nov 10, 2016 at 11:17 am
What a load of BS. If I presented to you a list of instructional quotes from both qualified teaching professionals and the “part time” non professionals you would be surprised which came from which.
Jim
Nov 9, 2016 at 3:19 pm
None of whom are as dangerous and arrogant as the anonymous unaccredited self proclaimed geniuses in the ‘instruction’ forum who badger new members for “asking something wrong”, trash other comments – without explaining why they think they were wrong – OR even adding anything constructive to the thread. The folks at the range, good/bad have to look you in the eye, tell you they’re CV and NAME, and are at least out there in real world, not
hiding in the darkweb as the lords of overcomplicated golf instruction poison
Jalan
Nov 7, 2016 at 9:36 am
I work with a “Model Swing Teacher”. I wouldn’t have it any other way. There is no ‘Flavor of the Month” in his methods. His method has been to correct or replace one fault at a time, working on it until I have it ingrained before adding or changing anything else.
I might add: one of his students was the USGA 2015 Mid Amateur Champion.
Bob Pegram
Nov 5, 2016 at 6:08 am
The same is true with clubs. Sometimes what seems logical isn’t always the best way to improve. I am more accurate and more comfortable with longer clubs – the opposite of what most pros teach.
Scott said it best. All that matters is what affects impact.
Mad-Mex
Nov 5, 2016 at 12:22 am
Actually there is only 2, good ones and bad ones,,,,,,,, up to you to figure it out,,,,,,,,
Grizz01
Nov 4, 2016 at 11:08 pm
Best way to get better is to go out, hit some balls and figure it out for yourself. You need a lesson from time to time, fine just go back and get the basics covered as reminder. Today there is a coach for everything and even shrinks. The greatest players the game ever produced had an old instructor they’d go back to… on occasion to get the basics back down. [excluding Tiger… who is so screwed up… gee I wonder why?]
Just go out and hit the ball. Industry has made this more difficult and less fun than it used be. Why? Follow the money.
Sam
Nov 4, 2016 at 6:39 pm
Went to a model swing teacher once screwed my game up ….was showing me swings of Ernie Els on comparison with mine.When I told him yea but there are other ways to swing the club he got a little irritated and said I didnt have the talent to swing different and play well.Money wasted.Time wasted.Lesson learnt.
Par4
Nov 4, 2016 at 4:02 pm
Which one are you???
Tom Stickney
Nov 4, 2016 at 5:26 pm
Started as a do what I do when I first started, evolved into a model swing guy until the last 1/2 of my career as an analytical teacher trying to convert it into feels now. I’m always trying to get better…
knoofah
Nov 4, 2016 at 2:14 pm
Entertaining and somewhat educational. Can’t talk about fixing the slice every week, I guess.
The dude
Nov 4, 2016 at 6:43 am
How about the teacher that wants to rebuild your swing when you just told him you play once a week… Always been a firm believer that changing the setup is the only way to go (for 99% of us). A lot of unrealistic changes are being taught when searching for swing “advice”.
B Hock
Nov 3, 2016 at 10:03 pm
I was hoping this would be more comedic…
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Ron
Nov 3, 2016 at 2:18 pm
So, based on this, I get the feeling there are two types of legitimate teachers – Analytical, and Psychological, and the rest are charlatans and hacks. Or so it seems from the derogatory way the other teachers are characterized here. I’ve been successful in the past with a teacher who simply tried to get me to reliably, repeatably get the face to the ball squarely. He started with what I had, stripped away what was preventing good contact, and built from there. My swing isn’t tour-quality, but guess what? I’m not a tour player. He’s given me a repeatable swing I can use to enjoy the game.
Can you ask any more from a coach?
tom stickney
Nov 3, 2016 at 4:51 pm
There is no teacher listed in my article that cannot help his or her students…the only question is to what level can they take you?
Rimjob
Nov 3, 2016 at 1:57 pm
The best teacher is the part-time guy who has gone through experimenting with all the swings himself, and knows about how the Pro and PGA teachers try to milk little bits of information bit by bit so that the students have to keep coming back, because progress is dead slow with those Pros who are trying to make a living.
And the part-time guy also knows what hard work and dedication to practice and hitting balls means results, and still enjoys hitting balls and playing in the odd tournaments himself, unlike those other Pros who are has-beens, most of whom don’t even want to play or hit balls any more.
Rob
Nov 4, 2016 at 4:28 pm
Well put…said no one ever. Someone seems a little bitter? Seems like someone who didn’t really make it in the golf world….
Brian K
Nov 6, 2016 at 4:30 am
I fully agree on this. Best teacher is the part time guy for most of average golfer. I have seen so many times “PGA coach” teach very little by little on every lesson.
Scott
Nov 3, 2016 at 12:31 pm
Before I read this I had a few in mind and you hit all of them. I’ve been to the Model Swing, the “What they do”, the feel and the analytical. In the end I grabbed a bit of knowledge from each but found the analytical approach worked best for me. It was less about positions and more about the moment of impact.
Christosterone
Nov 3, 2016 at 12:16 pm
Great article….
My only teacher I ever had was a VHS player…
So it began with Bobby Jones “how I play golf” and “how to break 90″…
Later I got my hands on range sessions of Jones acolyte Nicklaus…then Nicklaus acolytes Johnny Miller and Colin Montgomerie(thank u BBC)…
Needless to say I still worship at the altar of Jack, Johnny and Colin and will swing as they did in perpetuity….a reverse c born of tempo and timing with very little stress on the body(contrary to the bad back propoganda of the 80s and 90s)
No need for instructors…amazon sells the Bobby Jones set and YouTube has the rest though my Monty collection is without parallel in the Americas I would guess…and Miller as well
Long live Robert Streb…the best facsimile of Monty on planet earth!!!
-Chris
Tom
Nov 3, 2016 at 12:55 pm
whats “VHS” ?
Double Mocha Man
Nov 3, 2016 at 1:02 pm
Variable Head Slant… it was trendy just before the Stack & Tilt swing.
Christosterone
Nov 3, 2016 at 1:21 pm
Lol +1
cgasucks
Nov 3, 2016 at 3:53 pm
What year were you born Tom?
Steve S
Nov 4, 2016 at 2:10 pm
Try to swing like Jack(chicken wing, reverse K) for me led to VHS…Very High Scores
Christosterone
Nov 5, 2016 at 10:09 am
Lol…awesome
dennis clark
Nov 3, 2016 at 9:01 am
spot on Tom…