A quick check of Google shows there’s over 17 million webpages available for someone searching for “golf instruction”. On Youtube, you’ll be presented with 144,000 options.
Is all this information really helpful? No doubt some of it will be tremendous, but the problem is you’ve got to go through a lot of garbage to get to the good stuff. I’m sure most of the advice is nothing more than noise. A distraction that won’t offer any real-world help.
And it’s easy to fall into the trap. One golfer told me that he Googled some swing tip advice from his phone while he was buying a sandwich at the Clubhouse. He had made the turn under his handicap but wanted to know why he played a poor tee shot from the 9th.
He found a video and attempted to put the ideas into action. This poor golfer only scored 4 stableford points on the way back in. He lost his flow, rhythm and confidence all in a matter of a few hours. He went on to tell me that he hasn’t played well for months and is stuck and doesn’t know what to do next. Like a lot of motivated golfers, he counteracts the poor play by feeding his system more information.
I can’t help but think that the Internet has helped create a dizzying mess of conflicting ideas and bullshit. I’d go as far as saying that’s it’s impossible to learn anything useful on the web because you’ll trip over so much rubbish in your search. It’s one step forwards and two (or three) steps back.
What’s missing today is the ability to focus and trust oneself. Yep, you need to trust your swing when the heat is on, but you also need to trust yourself that you have the answers inside you. That you’re perfectly capable of hitting that little white ball into the hole in fewer tries.
- your natural swing is better than anything you’ll find online
- you have ability to solve problems on your own
- the courage to play golf in a way that satisfies you, not someone else
The Internet is not going to go away and there’s only going to be more theories and even more websites offering help. But ultimately you’ve got to walk your own path. You’ve got to be brave enough to listen to your intuition and block out all the noise.
You don’t need noise. You need trust in your own learning ability. Real skill isn’t in searching the web, it’s going to be found from within.