Golf News for Thursday, March 17, 2005 | Daily Golf Blogs

Blog: Golf instruction schools and academies scam golfers

Golf Instruction academies remind me a lot of those cosmetic surgery ads you see on TV. They have some good looking doctor who makes promises that your wrinkled, dented face can be transformed into a sculpted, perfect movie star.

Like game show hosts, instruction academies lead you to believe that a 2 or3 day course at their academy can cure your ills. They will take your
wrinkled, crinkled golf game and turn your god awful swing into a work of
art. There you will be in a group of maybe five or more hacks whose
handicaps vary wildly. You will have one pro who is "trained" by the big
name instructor that few people ever meet.

Kids get suckered all the time to have their parents pony up thousands of dollars to go to baseball camps as run by Major League ball players. Come and learn at the Alex Rodriquez Baseball Academy! A-Rod shows up, give everyone 10 minutesa and hops back into his Leer Jet. Suckers get hearded in like cattle only to find out they've been had.

Few golfers improve without instruction. The idea of "self taught" success
is very far and few between. For some reason, golfers think they can attend these David Ledbetter, Mike McGetrick, John Jacob Golf Schools and really get better. They all claim to have Tour pros as their prodigies. These pros do actually get trained and advised by these big wigs. When duffers like you and I go, we will get some schmuck who is his "trained" protégé. If you want the game show host who is running this school, ask for him and be prepared to pay.

Their ads area always quite impressive. You see the debonair pro and you think he is going to be the guy you meet and learn from. Generally, that won't be the case. Golf Schools are big business and they tend to mislead consumers. The big golf schools hire unemployed PGA Class A pros, tell them to forget everything they know, while only espousing the "Ledbetter way", "The Jacobs Way"...so on and so on. In essence, all you are doing is being raked over the coals for thousands of dollars while being taught by an every day PGA Pro who you could find just down the street.

Just think about it for one second. The name golfer who is leading you to believe you will be taught by him cannot be giving the lessons. He cannot possibly have the time to do that. The money is not there. The money is there by getting a flock of customers to train under cheap pros.

To really succeed in golf, you need to build a relationship with a quality
instructor locally who will be there for you when you need. Cost has nothing to do with quality.

The game show hosts are more bun than burger.

Rebel



 
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