New Coach, Who Dis?

After getting dumped by my last coach I reach back out

A few months ago, I mentioned that my coach left as an assistant golf pro and headed back into the world of education, taking a full-time job as a physical education teacher.

Did I feel like my shitty golf game pushed him back into the world of kids with perpetual runny noses? Maybe.

Did I take it worse than I took my divorce? Very much so.

Did I wait to engage with another coach? I did.

I finished leaning into the teachings he gave me last season and played well. However, I knew that I would have to engage with another teacher to continue improving. At my last lesson, my instructor recommended the head club pro, but he has a demanding schedule to get on, and they have installed nets to hit into the driving range over the winter. Both reasons were a drawback, and I decided to look elsewhere.

I considered other well-respected pros around the area and looked at different venues. One thing I wanted was to have more technology involved; I wanted to be able to see data when I was hitting. Reason one is because I am a stats geek, and reason two because I wanted to learn more about my swing stats to apply to my range time using my Rapsodo. So I narrowed down my choices to Red Tail or one of the indoor golf places. While I don’t mind golfing in the elements practicing in it sucks, and taking a lesson and sticking it out no matter what because you are paying for that time seemed miserable.

On Instagram, I have been following Andy Morris golf for a while, he’s the top instructor for the X Golf chain, and I have enjoyed watching his videos. I felt like we’d be a personality match, so I reached out about getting a package of lessons. Things have been going well so far, a few lessons in but there has been an adjustment period like any other relationship in life.

1) We had to learn each other’s vocabulary. Like every relationship, you must understand what the hell the other person is talking about and what they mean when they are saying something.

2) Had to rehash things I learned but was no longer applying. Seeing my swing on video from different angles and talking through some of the issues brought back some things I had been working on but had fallen back on bad habits. Some were easy to correct.

3) Leveraging more technology and more video needs an adjustment mentally. While I had used video with my previous coach, we’ve been using a bit more of it and layering in trackman data. The trackman data and trying to achieve a specific result is like instant feedback. One thing I have learned during lessons is that it’s the process and not the result, so you might not have hit a good shot, but the motion you are working on is essential. It’s hard to focus on that when on the range. Hitting indoors and seeing the data helps you ignore the ball flight and focus on the movement.