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What Type of Instructor Are You?

What type of instructor/coach are you? There is intense debate around instruction and what is the most efficient method; these conversations have been prevalent in the industry for the past 50+ years. Which method or system is best? One Plane/Two Plane, Stack and Tilt, Square to Square, MORAD, TGM, “No Method” or one of the many others I have not mentioned. How is a student supposed to know what to do? How is a teacher supposed to know what is the most effective?

I personally have entered into many conversations with teachers from all over the world about what method works best and predictably, I received a wide range of answers.

Why is prescribing to one method of teaching becoming more attractive to coaches? I think some people, for their own reasons, feel much more comfortable with a strict guideline to follow – a model if you will. There is so much information on teaching and coaching out there that many instructors throughout their careers can get stuck with helping students improve. Methods and systems can be a roadmap for development that can be quantified, measured and presented. I also think that people like to belong to a group of other likeminded players that they can communicate with, commiserate with, compare with, and generally engage with on a very specific pattern on which they are working. Surely there are also those who believe that this choice of method is superior, more inclusive or any other number of reasons.

Over the years I have had countless students present me with magazines, books or quotes from golf channel pundits about different methods, and to be honest early in my teaching career I didn’t have all the answers. To move my career forward I knew I had to answer the questions accurately regardless of how I felt about the information.

I would like to encourage all pros not just teachers to investigate all methods and systems; research them, test them and form your opinions. It is very easy to jump on board the current, popular system, but if you are truly serious about helping people play better golf, spend time studying as I believe all of these methods and systems have positives. As with all systems, only once you fully immerse yourself in the system do the best nuggets get discovered – I have included some links below to help begin the learning process.

Have fun researching!

For more information please use the following methods to contact me – amarr@golftec.com, @andrewmarrgolf (Twitter), Andrew Marr Golf Instruction (Facebook)

 Send your thoughts or articles to bhulbert@pga.com.