After 86 years on this earth, PGA of America instructor Bob Toski says he’s always lived to learn. “While I lived to learn, I tried to learn how to live,” says Toski. “In living to learn through golf, it’s made me a better person because golf develops character.”
Toski joined the PGA Tour in 1949 and was its leading money winner in 1954, winning four times. Then, at the age of just 30, he retired so he could spend more time with his young family. He took a series of jobs as a club professional and later worked with World Golf Hall of Fame inductees Tom Kite and Judy Rankin before finally being inducted into the PGA Golf Professional Hall of Fame in 2013.
At a Teaching & Coaching Summit with The Golf Fix host Michael Breed back in October of that same year, Toski remarked, “If I had to do it all over again… I would spend more time teaching people how to play golf on the golf course and not spend so much time on the practice tee.”
Why is that? Well, Toski says the greatest players ever to play the game were all great ball strikers, but they also knew how to score. After guys like Bobby Jones, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, and Byron Nelson became good ball strikers, they became great scorers.
“They were great scorers because they knew how to play golf shots,” says Toski. “They all knew how to play golf shots. I’ve seen a lot of great ball strikers that never knew how to score.”
Toski says you learn by going out on the golf course and playing until you learn how to score from tee to green. We watched this video today in Advanced Teaching, and while it’s a lot longer than the videos I usually post, I think it serves as a great example for anyone looking to become a golf instructor. The greatest teachers, like Toski, should be listened to, admired, and then emulated.