How to Break 80: Do You Have a 12 Month Golf Lesson Plan to Get You From 80 to 70?

On the path to golf score improvement from 80 to 70 you will face many challenges along the way. 

In our experience most of the challenges you will face will relate to 3 things; 

1. Unrealistic Development Timelines
2. Unrealistic Performance Expectations
3. Lack of an Holistic Golf Lesson Skill Development Plan


We all want to improve our golf faster, that’s a fact, but this alone can be your biggest obstacle to golf improvement if you don’t manage your golf skill development properly.

Golf skill improvement is simply a development process that involves continuously acquiring the right type of information in the form of knowledge and skills (both formally and informally), with the explicit goal of improving your golf skill capability to influence your golf score averages to go lower.

We know that ten strokes improvement to some golfers doesn’t seem like much, in the big scheme of things, but it can and does take the majority of golfers many years to learn how to break 80 consistently, and play in the 70's. 

The question is "what will it take for you to learn how to score in the 70's and more often?"

Maybe you already do, but you want to get your scores down into the low 70's, or even the high 60's more often.

In this article we will share with you a simple golf lesson development strategy we use at Pro Tour Golf College to help our golfers to lower their scores into the 70’s consistently, and in less time.

---

Every Golfer Learns in His or Her Own Best Way
I’m sure you can think about classes you took in high school that you really enjoyed because you found learning and remembering easier than others?

What about the classes that you never enjoyed because you simply didn't get what the teacher was saying, showing you, or getting you to do?

Every golfers learning style is as unique as their thumb print, and you need to know your best way of acquiring the knowledge and skills to help you improve your score average.

What is Your Preference for Receiving Information?

• Do you like watching videos of golf swings?
• Do you like reading golf articles and golf books? 
  
• Do you like to feel your golf swing through the use of training aids or practice drills?
• Do you like to view your golf swing on a computer screen to make sense of it? 
• Do you like detailed explanations about your golf swing? 
• Do you like to see your golf swing analysed on the screen because you find it easier to translate it into a feel?
  
  

Here’s the thing you really need to understand about learning that’s very important. You experience the world around you uniquely; you have a learning bias that is like no one else in the world. 

So you need to understand how you experience information from your environment, through your senses of sight, smell, taste, touch and sound, and then translate the information into something you can understand and eventually do.

---

       - A -                                           - B -                                 - C -

Golf improvement begins and ends with effective communication

You need to understand your personal access code--your A, B and C's for learning and improving your golf. 

Another way of saying this is you need to understand your personal golf learning style or preference. 

When you receive information from your environment (A), your senses are constantly filtering and personalizing the information within your brain (B) so you can make sense of it, and communicate it in your own unique way (C). 

The more you can interpret the information from your environment and personalize it to suit you, the faster you can learn the information.


If you are struggling to improve some aspect of your golf, then take a good look at how the information you are receiving is being presented to you, and determine whether this is the best way for you. 

Your Way First, Then Their Way
This is why it is absolutely essential that you develop a relationship with a golf instructor who has outstanding communication skills, and we don't mean that they can form brilliant and witty sentences, we mean a golf instructor who can personalize his/her golf lessons for you to your unique learning style, so you can more easily bridge the gap from what you currently know, to what you need to know. 

In this way you can improve your game as quickly as possible, and with a minimum of fuss. 

Always remember; the communication bridge must be built before you take lessons. Your instructor must understand how your learn best, before you begin to work on skill development. 

In this way you can be assured that you are going to gain much greater value from your golf lesson experience.

---

Your Annual Golf Lesson Development Plan
Lowering your golf score average from 80 down towards 70 requires very different information from the information that got you from 90 to 80. You need to make sure that your current golf instructor can help you to make the leap to sub 80 scores by providing you with a more specific golf lesson plan for improvement.

It’s not enough to just take lessons continually on your full swing and neglect other areas of your game. Scoring consistently in the 70’s requires development of not just your full swing technique, but many other golf skills.

Now I know this is obvious, but you would be surprised how many golfers spend most—if not all their time perfecting their full swing technique to the exclusion of everything else.

Your golf instructor should above all else be knowledgeable in many areas of golf skill development. They should have a deep knowledge and ability to teach you all the skills that will help you to play in the 70's.

In the Pro Tour Golf College program we specialize in getting golfers from 80 to 70, and we do this by focusing on what we call the 6 Golf Skill Development Areas which cover all the types of shots you will play on your journey from the tee to the cup.

We believe it’s imperative that your golf instruction program covers the 6 golf skill development areas (not including mental and physical development) to help you to lower your golf scores into the 70’s.

So let’s take a look at our model for planning and developing your skills so you can evaluate your current program, and please use our model (with the help of your golf instructor) to improve the golf skills that might be unintentionally overlooked.

---

Golf Skill Lesson Distribution - The 12 Month Lesson Planner
How many golf lesson hours do you currently take with your golf instructor over 12 months?

My total golf lesson hours working with my golf instructor over the past 12 months is? _____

For example if you take one lesson each week over 45 weeks, that would equate to 45 hours of face to face time with your golf instructor. 

Now out of the total lesson hours you've calculated that you take in 12 months, approximately how many technique and/or shot-making lesson hours are devoted to the following 6 skill areas?

1. Putting Lessons _____
2. Bunker Shot Lessons _____
3. Full Swing Lessons _____
4. Chip / Pitch and Lob Shot Lessons _____
5. Approach Wedge Lessons _____
6. Golf Course Lessons _____

Why is this important? 

The quantity of golf lesson hours in your golf skill development program is important because you need enough hours with your instructor over 12 months to work on the variety of skills that you need to develop to help you to play consistently in the 70's. 

If you are taking a lot of full swing lessons over 12 months, the important question you need to ask is "when will you find the time to have lessons on all the other skills that make up your game?"

Your 12 month golf lesson plan should allocate sufficient hours to work on all 6 skills areas as described in our model below. 

These lessons should be highly specific, and principally focused on developing the weakest of your 6 skill areas into strengths, rather than just enhancing your strongest skills.

6 Golf Skill Development Areas - Golf Lesson Model

Working with your instructor plan your lessons from 1 week (micro cycle) to 6 weeks (meso cycle) to cover all the skills that need to be developed

Your golf lessons should always be part of a well thought out annual plan, with the goal of lowering your golf score average over this period, rather than spending too much of your time out of 12 months just perfecting one or two skill areas.

The key distinction here is to develop a range of functional skills to lower your golf score average over 12 months, rather than just perfecting the look of your skills, which is very different. 

Too often the focus of elite golfers is mostly on full swing perfection, which can take up a big chunk of their 12 month development time period.


How many golfers do you know that look like tour players on the golf range, but don't score like tour players on the golf course in tournaments?

Working on full swing technique is important, but just perfecting your full swing for perfections sake is a waste of your valuable time that could be better spent working on the other skill areas with your instructor.

The key is to determine how much time needs to be invested in golf lessons for the 6 areas over a 6 week period with the help of your instructor.

Golf Skill Lesson Distribution - 6 Weeks
Using our Golf Lesson Model above, work out the amount of golf lessons you are going to take each week within your micro cycle of 7 days. 

From there work out how many golf lessons you will take in the next 6 week meso cycle, and then work out which skills will be developed with the help of your golf instructor.

Total Lesson Hours For the Next 6 Weeks? _____

1. Putting Lesson Lesson Hours _____
   
2. Bunker Shot Lesson Hours _____
3. Full Swing Lesson Hours _____
4. Chip / Pitch / Lob Shot Lesson Hours _____
5. Approach Wedge Shot Lesson Hours _____
6. Golf Course Lesson Hours _____

You may not be able to take a golf lesson in every skill area within your first meso cycle of 6 weeks, but you should plan to have a lesson in every skill area by your second meso cycle. 

Keep in mind that you can split 1 lesson hour up into 2 x 30 minute skill development sessions, or even 4 x 15 minute sessions like we have shared in the model below. 

---

Remember the real skill of golf is to produce a good score when you are not playing your best. To do this you need to develop a range of effective golf skills that can back you up when things aren't going well for you.

The 6 areas of golf development in the lesson model above should be incorporated into your current golf lesson program with the assistance of your golf instructor.

By developing a more complete golf lesson development program, you will cover all the golf skills that will help you to get your game down into the 70’s consistently.

David and I wish you the best of luck with it.


Lawrie Montague and David Milne - Pro Tour Golf College
Your Success On Tour is Our Business

---