Echoes from the past; the golfing information distributed by the unqualified masses!

Modern day coaching methods have their origins in a bygone age when golfers graced the links as a purely social recreational activity. This is back in the days long before Pros were ever heard of. The game has been around for a lot longer than we have had professional golfers and professional coaches.

So back in the mists of time, before the Pro’s evolved the very first players of the day were purely recreational Golfers who never thought seriously about practicing their games. Golf was purely for fun and a physical exercise which is why the layout and design of many clubs of over 100 years old have very poor, if any, practice facilities even to this day. Golf coaching and golf practice had not arrived on the scene. It goes without saying that the standard of golf was very poor 250 years ago.

Because people in those days didn’t practice, there were no expert players around at this time. The game was played purely by poor golfers with a very limited understanding of what it was really about. So when some poor soul was having a bad time his fellow golfers would try to offer a “TIP.” There was no one else so a tip, or help, only ever came from a fellow poor golfer; it was the only lifeline.

The problem was that these tips were a “hotch potch” of incorrect hunches based on observations of a movement that lasts a second; the human eye cannot accurately capture what occurs in the second it takes to make a golf swing. And this is how it went on for many decades. I believe the basis for the Golf Coaching System or approach that is used today has at its heart the flawed observations from maybe around 150 to 250 years ago with the only thing that’s changed been the terminology that’s used to describe the same worn out approach.

The early “Tipsters” from those past times have evolved and become the present day golf range menaces. These are the guys who stalk the Ranges of the world, who cannot play themselves yet think they can help someone with tips and advice.

So the question is, just what kind of information was and still is been passed around by these people and the mainstream coaching community?

Take a look at the list of golf tips below. I would expect most of you know them off by heart but do know how long they have been around? I know first-hand they have been around for decades! When I started playing over 45 years ago, even then they made up the extent of advice that you would ever get from workmates, friends, family, the Golf Range menace and Professional Coaches because these tips even then were deeply entrenched into the folklore of the game. They have been around I dare guess for nearly as long as the game has been in existence. The ancient list is as follows……

Keep your head still.

Keep your head down.

Keep your eye on the ball.

Keep your left arm straight.

Keep your heels flat on the floor

Keep still and don’t sway.

Keep down, don’t lift up.

This well-known and well used toxic list of instructions with its origin back in the mists of time pretty much influences all aspects of the entire content of the standard methodology of coaching that today still fucks up legions of golfers. Virtually all golfers have used these tips and passed on these tips. I would like to emphasise that if they are the answer, then why are 95% of golfer’s poor players. Please wake up and realise that they are not the answer; they never were and never will be!

In fact the situation today is worse. The above are what I call “static instructions” and modern day video freeze frame analysis creates more and more of these static reference points thereby compounding the damage. Static instruction stifles what should be a dynamic expression of movement! It smothers the action with a systematic controlled shut down. If I were to sum up this situation in one word, it would just be DISASTER.