From the beginning, it is essential to be taught by a good golf teaching professional in order to convert our natural swing into a movement that has no flaws or defects and which allows us to make progress more quickly and effectively to our game.
Unless one has the inherent gift of genius like those have been bestowed on some sporting treasures and unrepeatable figures in world sport, such as Severiano Ballesteros; it will be very difficult in a sport like golf, to forge a career – even a small one – without the help of a teaching professional.
And there are sports in which it is very difficult to be self-taught, especially those which require the use of additional ‘tools’ to develop your skills.
Golf is typical in this sense, although you can also try to emulate Seve and many other great Spanish players from that era and earlier (Piñero, Cañizares, Rivero, Garrido …) who developed their skills mainly from working as caddies and teaching themselves, based on observation and practice and, if they were lucky, some advice from the most experienced golfers. In those harsh economic times in Spain, they had instinct, talent and the desire to build a future in the world of golf.
Their natural swing carried them very far, but those days are far behind now, and it keeps getting harder and harder in Spain, to hire the services of a caddie, simply because they have become a rare and endangered species. And if you do find them, they are so different from those from half a century ago, who were trying to make a living by bringing home a few pesetas to help the struggling family economy.
Times change as does the way in which golf is taught. The number of golf fans in Spain has grown enormously in recent decades and there are now approximately 300,000 amateur federated players. To meet the demand for golf lessons, the presence of golf academies has grown, with many of them now equipped with modern technological swing analysis equipment.
Golf is a very complex sport in which multiple factors come into play and influence various circumstances: from course conditions, the weather or our mood at any given time. Not to mention the range of possibilities or strategies that we face when we attack a particular target: do we risk carrying the ball over the water or are we more conservative and land the ball at the front or on the side of the green, if we carry the bunker or leave the ball short, if we hit the ball above or below the tree branches, if we have enough length to tackle the dogleg, if …
Golf is a game with a combination of various conditions, with many doubts and few certainties, with constant challenges that require immediate answers.
It is therefore essential to create a solid foundation, to be taught by a good teaching professional to convert our natural swing into a movement that has no flaws or defects and which allows us to progress more quickly and effectively our game.
Nowadays, a golf teacher is essential during the introduction process into the sport as well as to improve the skills of experienced players.
The Costa del Sol, one of the leading golf destinations in the world, has numerous golf academies for beginners of this sport, or to improve and perfect your game.
Professionals responsible for teaching golf, whose qualification is endorsed by their respective national associations, do much more than just give classes; they facilitate an improved long-term game, to feel and create a solid foundation that will accompany us for the rest of our sporting life.
A good teacher will teach you things you would never have learned with just one or more classes. Only a qualified professional will be able to transfer your good shots on the driving range to the actual golf course. You will see that every shot you hit on the driving range is as important as if performed in an important competition.
And if the academy also has comprehensive practice facilities for hitting all types of shots, allowing you to take into account various situations you will face on a golf course, all the better for your game. If the academy also has a few full holes on a small par 3 course adjoined to the academy, this would be an ideal academy for beginners in the ever surprising and attractive world of golf.
As the famous Sam Snead appropriately once said, “You cannot go to a shop and buy a good swing.”
Fortunately, there are academies and professionals who will help us to start an exciting relationship with this stormy and passionate seducer, that is golf.
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