All Posts - Page 149 of 205 - United States Golf Teachers Federation

4 Dec 2013 Corina Pelloni

PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE

The following are solid principles to follow that will help to develop your teaching skills: Only perfect practice makes perfect Golf is a skill; therefore, practice golf in pressure conditions. This is the major difference between learning a skill and learning a technique. Keep practices sessions short and frequent when working on a new skill. Use practice time efficiently. Students should experience a reasonable amount of success at each practice session. Make practice fun as well as challenging. Positive Attitude towards Learning No matter what the standard of the player, a good instructor will make him or her better. It is important that any learning situation should focus toward success. The attitude of the teaching professional and student should be characterized by two qualities:

An open mind to receive new ideas.
An enquiring mind to question new ideas.

Organization Learning is based upon memory and students will recall more information when the material is organized. Think of our memory system like a file cabinet. The more organized the material is filed, the easier it is retrieved. Thus, instructors need to devise their lesson plans. This allows the student to easily organize the material. Teaching is about creating environments that enable players to develop at their optimal rate.

Golf Managers Must Understand and Manage Marketing

Pat Montana, Contributing Writer, US Golf Managers Association

One of the biggest concerns of golf club managers today is retaining current members or customers and attracting new members or customers. This is a marketing problem and golf club managers must understand and manage marketing in our changing world.

Marketing in its broadest sense is a concept for running the entire business. It puts the customer at the center of the business universe and not the organization. In other words, we must start in the marketplace and work backward from customer needs to develop our products and services – not the other way around. This so-called “marketing concept” is based not only on being customer-oriented, but also on doing it profitably. We are not interested in volume for volume’s sake, but in volume at a profit which flows as a result of meeting people’s needs effectively and solving their problems with our products and services. In its broadest sense, the purpose of marketing is to cause change in your favor. It takes a conscious pre-planned effort and requires that top management first set a specific measurable objective for the golf club facility which will serve as guidelines for the functional areas to do their planning and their research aimed at discovering opportunities for causing profitable change in their marketplace.

Failing Forward

By: Gregg Steinberg, WGCA contributing writer When Dustin Johnson lost the lead to Ian Poulter during the final round at the WGC-HSBC, he did not force the issue and get too aggressive, leading to a blow-up hole or two. The wiser and more seasoned Johnson has learned from his past mistakes. He said he must be patient and stick with his game plan and let the scores happen. It worked, and DJ found the winner’s circle to what he called “the biggest win so far in my career.” We all make mistakes. We all fail at times in our golfing life. We have all had a few terrible holes and many horrendous rounds. We have all seen the greatest golfers in the world fail, as well. However, the most successful golfers use failure as a springboard to greater days on the links. Dustin Johnson has failed forward. He has used his mistakes in the past as lessons well learned. Here are a few suggestions to fail forward in your golfing career: 1) Be real about your mistakes. Realize that failing in golf and performing poorly at times is part of golf. Take it easy on yourself when you hit some bad shots and have a bad hole. One of the greatest golfers of all time, Ben Hogan, expected to hit five stinkers a round. 2) Create a failing forward journal. After each round, write down five mistakes you made. Then write down what you learned from those mistakes and move on. The importance of this mental exercise is that you no longer dwell on the mistakes. Focus only on what is gained in knowledge from each experience. But, don’t just think about what you should have done. Go out and practice the skills you need to improve, both mental ones and physical ones. As legendary basketball coach John Wooden once said, “Failure is not failure unless it is failure to change.” Dr. Gregg Steinberg is a regular guest every Tuesday on “Talk of the Tour,” heard on the Sirius/XM’s PGA Tour Radio. He is a tenured professor of sports psychology and has been the mental game coach for many PGA Tour players. Dr. Steinberg is the author of the bestselling golf psychology book MentalRules for Teaching Golf, which can be obtained by calling 888-346-3290.

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