Learning How to Teach the Game of Golf

A select few of us were able to be part of a really memorable experience at the Golf Academy the other day. Five of us, who are currently taking Advanced Teaching with PGA Professional Jay Friedman, were asked to volunteer our time after school to give lessons to the members of the Fountain Hills High School golf team.

Over the next several weeks, many of our Advanced Teaching classes will be outside at different facilities across the Valley so we can practice giving golf lessons and teaching the game. Working with these high school golfers was a nice preview of what we’re going to face in the coming weeks.

I really have to hand it to Campus Director Tim Eberlein. For the last six years, Tim and several GAA faculty members have offered up their time to give lessons, fittings, Rules clinics, and lessons to high school players and coaches throughout the Valley – twice a year – as a free service to grow the game of golf.

In Arizona, the golf season for Divisions I and II starts in August, and for Division III, it starts in February. Right now, there are plans to do a massive clinic combining all the coaches and players at the Golf Academy in conjunction with the Arizona Interscholastic Association (AIA). It’s desperately needed. Golf is one of those sports where everyone has to be on the same page to enforce the Rules, and as I saw firsthand at the High School State Championships in November, unfortunately, not everyone knows what they are or how to interpret them.

For those of us who want to become instructors, hands-on experience is an important next step in our development, especially because teaching someone the proper way to swing the golf club is no easy task. These past 13 months at the Academy have taught us a lot, and we know more about the golf swing than we ever did before.

The obstacle is and will continue to be translating what we know and then presenting it in a way that’s relatable to our students. That was the most difficult and most eye-opening aspect of this experience. Several of the kids we worked with had pretty good golf swings (and a couple of them had only been playing for about a week), but like a majority of the golfing public, they struggled with the basics: grip, aim/alignment, and set-up.

It was up to us to tell them how to fix these issues, and it wasn’t easy! Some of us tried and failed, and some of us were better than others. That was the humbling part.

Golf is a really hard sport to learn, and it’s even harder to play. It’s a lifelong sport, and I think what we learned by working with these kids is that we’ll never stop learning. I know I still have a lot to learn, and I’ve been playing for almost 17 years.