Agreed on lessons vs practice. Feedback and some instruction is good but teaching is often too cookie cutter and doesn’t address individuals enough.
I’ve never taken a formal lesson but I’ve bent the ear of many a good player and asked them things about the swing, sometimes they’ve offered advice. I don’t think enough people truly try to learn how the golf swing is supposed to work and practice the key elements. When I was young I used to pour over all the tips sections in Golf Digest and Golf magazine, as well as reading books by guys like Nicklaus. I’d take the things that appealed to me and made sense in my head felt natural. Ones that didn’t fee right or were overly technical, I’d disregard.
After many years away from the game I recently began to play again and it was amazing how things fell back into place after awhile. The key was definitely practice and regaining some muscle memory. I clawed my way back to a 5 handicap, only 2 away from my younger days. The far bigger challenge was teaching my 14 year old son how to play properly. He’s very athletic and I recalled from my youth that it’s critically important to let young players be athletic and not inundate them with technical thoughts. What was hard was remembering all those little, critical fundamentals that all good golf swings need to have and being able to convey them to him. I had the best golf year of my life playing and practicing with him and in only his second year of playing he’s a 14 handicap and has the ability to get into single digits next year. Unfortunately he seems to have inherited his putting ability from his old man so it might be harder than expected
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Anyway, bit of a tangent there, just wanted to express my agreement with your practice comment.
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