Golf lessons south dublin

If your looking to get a lesson around stillorgan I will suggest a pro called Kevin Foy. He is excellent. he fully focuses on what your swing needs as opposed to what he feels is the perfect swing. Dont get me wrong I'm not saying others dont but I just found him great.

If you want his number from I will route it out for you.
Price wise he is right on que with your first quote but I found he does you a deal if you book a few lessons from him.

I would disagree that there is no benefit in me being able to look at a collection of my own swings over the course of a couple of lessons.
I would much prefer to know exactly what it is I am doing rather than what I think I am doing, with a high quality camera you can see each position you get into, with your mates camera you get a collection of blurs surrounded by a nice setup and nice finish pose.

One lessons rarely made anyone better, at least not anyone who had more than a trivial problem to solve so Im not advocating that you go, get a video lesson to take home and never go back again.

Im not paying €45 just to get a video, I want a lesson with something I can take home and look at, work on. You made the point yourself "applying .....what you remember from the 30 min lesson the week before."
With a video lesson you will have the video to refer to so u know exactly what was said.

Maybe its just horses for courses but I certainly think there is some benefit to it.

GreeBo wrote: »

I would disagree that there is no benefit in me being able to look at a collection of my own swings over the course of a couple of lessons.
I would much prefer to know exactly what it is I am doing rather than what I think I am doing, with a high quality camera you can see each position you get into, with your mates camera you get a collection of blurs surrounded by a nice setup and nice finish pose.

One lessons rarely made anyone better, at least not anyone who had more than a trivial problem to solve so Im not advocating that you go, get a video lesson to take home and never go back again.

Im not paying €45 just to get a video, I want a lesson with something I can take home and look at, work on. You made the point yourself "applying .....what you remember from the 30 min lesson the week before."
With a video lesson you will have the video to refer to so u know exactly what was said.

Maybe its just horses for courses but I certainly think there is some benefit to it.

Good argument, and I won't disagree with you on the positives you've mentioned above.

What I was and am getting at, is that the negatives out-weigh these positives.

This kind of technical analysis and breakdown of mechanics has been popularised by television coverage of professional golf. It can make great entertainment and interesting viewing when the experts go through the frame-by-frame shots of the top players. It's not just in golf - look at Andy Gray for the football. In both cases, I agree that it's both entertaining and interesting viewing.

However, this is a way of making good tv - it's not a way of improving your golf game. I'm firmly of the belief that golfers who really go in for this scientific approach will more often than not over-complicate and become far too technical and mechanical. Most clubs have a a guy or two, usually off a 3 or 4 handicap, that swings it like a tour pro but can also shoot 80+ on other days. Most clubs also have the scratch or 1 h'cap players that get relatively few lessons, may not have quite as impressive a swing etc. The former guy usually finds himself puzzled and frustrated as to why he can't get to the next level despite putting in the hours. The latter guy maybe hasn't shot higher than 78 since that storm in '97
Ok I'm using loose analogies here but only to elaborate on what I'm getting at.

To boil it down, the more technical and mechanical you become, the harder it will be for you to feel confident and free to hit the ball to your target. In my view, watching yourself on a screen is a surefire way to make yourself more analytical and technical. It may suitable for elite players on tour or in the higher echelons of amateur golf. But for you and I, I think taking two or three clear pieces of instruction from a lesson and working on those on the practice area, playing some rounds with maybe one of them as a swing-thought, then returning for further instruction is the way to go.

The racing film, Days of Thunder is a (inadvertantly) perfect example of this way of approaching sport. He didn't know anything about how a car worked or the terminology, he just sat in a drove. Of course it's good to know how the golf-swing works and to practice some specific mechanics as advised, but when it comes to game day, you have to forget about mechanics and just sit in and drive. This will be hard to do if you've trained yourself to be analytical.

This is all my POV and in the Bob Rotella school of thought. Your POV is the Ben Hogan approach, so don't take the above as me completely rejecting the mechanical approach. I mean, who am I to disagree with Ben Hogan? I just think Hogan's approach was geared towards the elite golfers of the world who were going from good (tour-pro journeymen) to great (major winners). Our "good" is more like an 8 handicap and "great" might be scratch.

I guess I'm saying between a good local pro and Rotella books you can learn to crawl, walk and run. Then you can deepen your analysis and go to an elite coach who'll fine tune your mechanics and teach you to fly.

As you might guess, learning to fly costs more than €45 per 30 mins

I see the benefits of having video analasis and I also think for me I work better without this aid. I am more of a feely person and as Thewing has said Kevin keeps it very simple and gets you working on one aspect at a time.

That said he works out of stepaside range and I know their is a bay up there with video in it so I am sure he would have no problem letting you video the lesson.

Nothing a quick phone call couldnt sort out !!

arg wrote: »

Very interesting thread. It's great to hear the different perspectives on the use of video analysis and focusing on the mechanics. Here's my experience.

I went for my first pro lesson last summer after I developed a slice I couldn't get rid of. I got the video analysis of my swing; from which I was told that my right foot should be turned 10 degrees further to the right and I should 'reach out' further when I address the ball (fairly exact feedback). I have to admit that I thought the DVD was great, and while I wasn't convinced about the verbal feedback I thought that the DVD would be a great help. I convinced myself that by analysing the video of myself I could work out all my swing flaws (idiot!). For me this was a complete disaster; my swing fell to pieces fairly quickly; my scores got progressivly worse and really struggled to break 90 (more often scoring 100+). I then stumbled across the Bob Rotella book and read about his perspectives on the game and how you should trust your swing and focus on a target when you play rather than think about the mechanics. The improvements were fairly dramatic within a few weeks I was far more consistent and regularly broke my best score.

I'm not saying that DVD's aren't useful for certain golfers; but in my case it caused me to over analyse my swing and led me to obsess about mechanics.

I think Shreik will be chalking one up for himself, but i'll save him the time and do it for him .

I have never done the video analysis of my golf swing but tried it for my goal kicks in GAA and it made them worse also. Now i just kinda forget about it, walk back and just kick it. Going alot further and mostly where I want them to go!

Thanks for the replies guys. While it's good of you to back up my suggestion, I'm sorry for your troubles I assure you, I too was that soldier, and it's not an enjoyable place to be. But it seems that we have all learned from it, and are likely to be better for it.

1916_clan wrote: »

Great subject, video analysis with take home DVD VS no DVD or video analysis

Man, I've repeatedly said I think that video analysis during a lesson is a great thing in moderation. Packing some one off with a DVD to replay over and over is a different kettle of fish.

1916_clan wrote: »

I completely disagree with shriekingsheet, he sounds like 1 pro i went to and when I asked him did he give a video golf lesson with a DVD he got stroppy and explained to me that it was useless and when I told him David leadbetter believes it's the only way to give a lesson he still disagreed instead of saying "ohhh i must look into it" or "it might be good for my clients":mad:

So far only 2 places in Ireland do the DVD like the leadbetter academy, 1 guy in north Dublin(i had lessons with him) and the other guy in Belfast(would like to get 1 there too)

Well that's poxy behaviour for any service provider. But saying to him "David Leadbetter does it" to prove him wrong was a childish argument if you ask me. Does the fact that Butch Harmon didn't send Tiger Woods home with a DVD after each lesson mean Leadbetter was wrong?

Just logically take a look at it like this...
Of the only two people you can find providing this service, one is widely rumoured to be not fully qualified as a PGA teaching pro and the second is a huge american franchise that has come to Ireland to make money off a brand name. Would you like fries with that DVD?

Look, I'm not posting this for you in a "put that in your pipe and smoke it" way. I don't need to reassure myself that I'm right by convincing you. I've just been in that technical mindset and I know what it's like. Find a golfer near you, the best golfer in your club or some really low guy you admire, ask him who he gets lessons off and go to that pro. Don't ask the pro to teach you in a certain way or whatever, just go with an open mind and do what he says. And read Golf is Not A Game of Perfect while you're at it

gerp wrote: »

There is no point in fooling yourself into thinking that your swing is good when it might be crap.

2 years ago when i was out playing with a guy one day i told him that i was getting regular lessons the first thing he said to me was did the pro put you on camera and i said no and he said that i really need to see my swing on camera.

So i asked a mate if he would put me on his camera when i saw my swing i felt like shooting the pro i was seeing at the time, my swing looked brutal but the pro said i was doing great and my swing looked really good.

I know I really should just drop this but it's wrecking my head.

Here's what you're saying:
1) your pro was wrong to tell you you were making progress and your swing was looking good. Would you prefer he said "in fairness mate, that's garbage, give up the game"?
2) You're saying you should be realistic with yourself and your attitude should be "my swing is crap, why fool myself?"
3) Some guy you played with two years ago told you you need to see your swing on camera? If you're gonna take advice from whoever offers it, chances are you'll end up hugely confused.

You can disregard everything else I've said but believe me when I tell you this: without even seeing your swing, if you improved your attitude alone, leaving your technique exactly as it is, you would be a more confident player and would shoot lower scores. This mindest is costing you shots without a shadow of a doubt. If you can play off 11 thinking like this, there's a seriously handy single figure golfer in you who's being held back by poor thinking.

Now think for a second, if you took this on board, read GINAGOP and put a few points of it into practice, as well as getting lessons from a good pro, trusting him and making gradual sound improvements, imagine how good you could be...

GreeBo wrote: »

Even the best of the "feel" teachers will say that you must have a sound swing/setup to begin with.
You can put all the trust in the world into a crap swing and you swill still get inconsistent results out of it.
You said yourself that you need lessons from a pro as part of believing in your swing, a lesson with something to takehome is just a different type of lesson.

I can agree that sitting at home and slowmo-ing your swing in an attempt to cure all the problems is a disaster. But its no more of a disaster than trying to over analyse each piece of your swing in a mirror.
Any lesson is really only supposed to work on 1 or 2 things at a time. For example the pro might have you over-exaggerate a move in an attempt to counteract another bad move that you are making, trying to make other swing changes at the same time aint going to work out too well.

Do you not think there is some grey are between "in fairness mate, that's garbage, give up the game"? and "yeah dude, looking perfect!"
If you are a 50 year old 20 h'cap player then the pro needs to set a realistic goal with you. If that means lower scores with an ugly swing, so be it. Naturally if you are a 20 year old 15 h'cap then you have very different goals and abilities.

I video lesson highlighting your swing at the start of the lesson and comparing it with your (hopefully) better swing at the end of the lesson give you the ability to keep practicing the right thing at home.

Perhaps the reason few pros offer this service is that they are either unwilling or unable to foot the setup costs?

Jesus. Is this all one person posting under various usernames to wind me up today?

Nah just kidding. It's a common question that Rotella addresses a few times in different books. "How can i trust a swing if it's flawed?"

There's isn't much of a gulf in the way I see it and the way you do. It's 4pm on Friday though so I'm not gonna get into it.