This week, short game guru Todd Sones is making his annual campus visit to the Golf Academy of America Phoenix. Todd serves on the Golf Academy National Advisory Board and visits all five campuses at some point during the year.
Todd is one of the main reasons why I decided to attend the Golf Academy. I had the good fortune of being able to take a lesson from him outside Chicago in October of last year, and it was after talking to him that I became convinced that I could and should pursue a career in the golf industry. So far, I’m glad I made that decision.
Todd was recently named one of Golf Digest’s 50 Best Teachers in America for 2015-2016 and has been a Golf Magazine Top 100 Instructor every year since 1995. Because I’m considering a career as a golf instructor, I’ve signed up for four of the one-hour clinics Todd is giving while he’s here. He’s also guest speaking in several of my classes this week.
The first clinic I observed this afternoon really got me thinking about how the golf swing is taught and the instructors who teach it. Teaching the golf swing takes patience, time, and dedication on the part of both the teacher and the student. The talent it takes to teach the golf swing isn’t necessarily the ability to quickly diagnose a student’s swing faults, it’s the ability to talk to the student in a way he or she can understand so he or she can make the necessary changes.
And that’s where the artistry lies. The golf swing is the golf swing, but as a teacher, there are a myriad of ways to translate those ideas in order to make them relate to the pupil. You have to start by finding the main culprit that’s causing the problem in the student’s golf swing.
No doubt, Todd has seen thousands of golf swings throughout the course of his career, but I think he’s a great instructor because he’s consistent. Sure, there’s a vast number of golf swings sitting on the shelves of his mental library, but all of his lessons consist of the same three elements: an intellectual understanding, a kinesthetic approach, and a commitment from the student. Todd says he thinks people are a combination of all three learning types: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic.
The intellectual understanding comes through visual and auditory prompts like, “Does that make sense to you?” But Todd also really tries to get all of his students to “feel” the swing changes that they need to make. That’s the kinesthetic approach. He says feel is probably the most important part of the lesson.
If you’re learning how to play a sport, especially golf, you need to feel the different stages of the swing from setup (grip, aim, posture, and stance) and backswing (the club from the at rest position to the hip represents the takeaway) to transition, impact, and finish.
The commitment to practice is really important too. That’s when the student really takes ownership of the changes he or she needs to make. If they don’t make the commitment to practice, students can’t get better.
Teaching takes patience on the part of the teacher but also on the part of the student. Todd says sometimes, this is the hardest thing to teach… and to preach. The golf swing is learned in stages, and a good teacher predicts not only what will happen but prepares his student for the worst case scenario. That’s validation that the teacher knows what he’s talking about.
It’s also about keeping it simple. Offering checkpoints throughout the lesson is really important, but so is the importance of limiting each swing to only one swing thought. I learned that’s about as much as the brain can apply anyway. The rest is just noise.
I will say what impressed me the most about watching Todd give lessons was that within no more than ten minutes of working with the 15 students that he did (including me), all saw significant improvements in their golf swings or their putting strokes. To see that much progress in such a short amount of time is exciting and encouraging to the student because it shows him that he’s getting the change.
It also gives him the confidence to keep working toward the end goal. That to me is the mark of a great instructor. Todd would tell you that’s what happens when you find the cancer that’s causing the problem in the student’s golf swing. I think he’s just being humble. Either way, it’s time to get to work.