Anyone who has spent a single session with me knows I’m not a fan of collective golf instruction. I label it disorganized, conflicting, vague, and flat out wrong. Most golfers have experienced one or more of these to some degree within their pursuit of better golf regardless of medium. Social media instruction is particularly poor.

If there be any doubt, I thought I’d take a typical example and put it here.

This screen shot was from a video made by a relatively popular golf instruction account. The amount of followers nears 30,000 and this video went viral with over 22,000 likes. It highlights the “secret drill” that made Scottie Scheffler the number one ranked player in the world. Quite a claim.

In the drill, the golfer puts a tee in the grip end of the club as a point of reference. The instructor states to take a backswing to nearly the top of the swing and make the tee point to the ball while pausing the swing. After rehearsing this, the player is directed to take a swing and go to that same spot in the backswing and hit the ball.

On its own, this feature of the club pointing at the ball is a microscopic byproduct of other correct technique. In other words, it’s a meaningless pursuit that could leave more crucial technique hanging out to dry. Given a complete backswing, yes, the club may briefly point at the ball. It does this because the club surpasses a certain height yet remains below a certain angle in the backswing.

Here are several multiple tour winners and major championship winners (minus Finau). Some do point the club at the ball at some moment in their backswing — some don’t.

But what does pointing the shaft at the ball do? The instructor never explains it. We could pick anything for the club to point at and say it’s a “secret key.” The club points at the trail shoulder! It points at the belly button! The club will point at a dozen things throughout the swing.

Setting aside the supposed benefit of the technique, the truly massive error here is the means of applying it.

To begin, the club does point at the ball but only for a fraction of a second during the backswing. Look at Adam Scott’s swing above, does the club point at the ball? Yes, but the position this is working on is not even the top of the swing. It’s an undefined position in the backswing that has no reference. How do we know when the club should be pointing at the ball? What if we have a short backswing? We could end up pointing the club at the ball too early or late thinking we are actually doing it correctly. This brings up the next issue.

The golfer is at a complete disadvantage in determining where that club is pointing. The only point of view enabling a person to determine this standard is from a down the line perspective. Even a skilled and experienced golfer is highly unlikely to pull this off.

And now for the biggest contradiction ever, the actual swing from the player in the video is not even producing what is being instructed. When the golfer takes a fluid, full swing and hits the shot, the club does not point towards the ball.

Fortunately, another viewer notices and comments “Freeze frame it when you actually hit the ball…you aren’t following your own advice.”

Another commenter quickly defends stating “it’s a drill and he was almost perfectly on plane.”

How does “it’s a drill” excuse the lack of actual execution in the swing? Isn’t a drill supposed to train the technique you want in the actual swing?

But then the instructor chimes in “feel isn’t always real…”

Uhhh…Okay.

That statement is typically used to explain the disconnect between what a golfer feels they’re doing versus what they’re actually doing. Let’s use a basic example. I frequently have golfers use a half swing to practice certain changes. Many golfers cannot believe how short the swing feels. But when we review the video, it’s clearly a half swing which is what we wanted. If they did what feels like a half swing and the video showed them blowing past that with a full swing, then it’s not correct. The client and I are not going to claim we did a half swing. That’d be delusional.

Back to the Instagram golf tip.

The instructor states “feel isn’t always real…” but in this instance, the club is not pointing at the ball. So, it must mean it just feels like it’s pointing at the ball.

This is the moment where the instruction collapses in on itself. Let’s lay it out, shall we?

• The goal of this drill is to make the club point at the ball at some position in the backswing.

• We are given an example of a good swing, but that feature does not occur within the swing.

• When pressed on this, the instructor disregards the evidence stating “feel isn’t always real…”

• This elevates feel over real meaning the club should feel like it is pointing at the ball.

• Where the club actually points is now irrelevant as long as you feel it’s pointing at the ball.

How can we possibly evaluate that!? Feel is relative. It’s different between people. If where the club actually points is irrelevant, what in the Sam Hill are we looking to do!? How do we know it’s correct!?

Do you see how this line of instruction just contradicted itself? We were told this feature is extremely valuable for game improvement. After all, it’s what made Scottie Scheffler world number 1! Yet, after a couple comments, a viewer is left not knowing what is supposed to take place. The fact that the golfer didn’t point the club at the ball isn’t even addressed. The instructor could have stated that this player is still working on this technique or maybe the player did do it, but the commenters didn’t analyze the swing correctly. But instead, he stands by it. If he doesn’t take the feature seriously, why should we? We get no substantive justification.

Well, that’s not completely true. The instructor does make one final case for his information.

“former Div-1 Golfer for a top 100 school….I know my stuff.”

In debate and philosophical circles, this is a perfect example of argument to authority. It’s a logical fallacy that assumes a statement is valid because of its source rather than its reasoning. 10 + 10 = 20 not because the teacher emphatically says so, but rather it’s what mathematics dictates. If a mathematician with a PhD says 10 + 10 = 100, you wouldn’t accept it.

What does being a former division one golfer for a top 100 school have anything to do with whether the information and drill you supplied being correct? Nothing. Most of us reading this article know how to drive a car. It doesn’t mean we understand the intracacies of how an engine works. Performance does not always equal understanding. Use his line in an example of a coach-student exchange:

“Hey coach, why does the club need to be in this position?”

“I’m a former D-1 golfer for a top 100 school…I know my stuff.”

Do you see how absurd this line is?

I have never once justified my instruction because of my experience as an NCAA coach or college golfer. I often forget to mention that part of my background when meeting with a new client. I always justify my information through biomechanics, data, physics, and geometry. We can verify my instruction from the data on the launch monitor and the body movement on the video software. These tools hold me accountable, and a client can challenge me at any time. If I go wrong, the TrackMan and cameras would certainly catch me.

Furthermore, performance doesn’t equal the capacity to reproduce said performance in another. Many coaches are failed players, many players cannot coach. This conundrum is a whole separate discussion itself. Point being his instruction might have a little more merit if he reproduced a bunch of good players from worse form. He should at least reference a coaching track record if he’s going to use an argument from authority — instead he goes with a completely different field of performance. This reminds me of terrible college professor who got their job because of their past career, not because they are effective at transmitting knowledge and skillset to others.

This final line is what adds a personal layer to this conflict. I don’t know the instructors I disagree with. I’d like to think most have good intentions. I don’t initially have problems with them personally. It’s why I blot out the social media handles, I’m not looking to start a battle in the comments or cause personal stress for them. However, when they disregard the genuine question and critique then hide behind golf cliches and inconsequential reputation it indirectly communicates that the golf population should just blindly accept what they’re being told. Is this what a coach is supposed to do?

The golf population is starved for help. They want answers and understanding but they have to sift through so much convoluted content, and this is a perfect example of what it looks like. When they have a critique, they are met with drive-by, brain-dead quips and grandstanding on title.

It doesn’t get any easier when this happens:

Shortly after coming across the last video, I stumbled upon this one saying the club should be pointed inside the golf ball.

So, who do we go with?

We have another former player with a popular golf instruction account. They both advocate for a different position of the club in the backswing.

If we think critically about it, at some point the club will obviously point inside of the “ball line.” Looking at Tommy Fleetwood here, if we imagined his lead arm getting a little higher then that club would point at the ball.

As I stated earlier, for the club to point at the ball it needs to be taken to a certain height and the club shaft needs to be set below a certain angle. Basically, this club pointing at the ball is a matter of swing length (and arm rotation). Even I maintain swing length isn’t all that important — just how we get that length. Maybe attention should be turned elsewhere like towards having that club at the correct angle. Maybe there is a truly correct position there (wink, wink) instead of obsessing over meaningless, microscopic articulations.

But that’s really all the “tip artists” have. They don’t have an organized curriculum with an end in sight. Their collection of instruction is a pool of puzzle pieces from a million different sets. To them, the golf swing is a project that is never supposed to end. They’re incentivized to approach it this way and churn out something new because that means more followers and likes. So, they’ll cut up those puzzle pieces into the most obscure arbitrary nuggets and pass them off as central building blocks. Even something as asinine as where the club points for a fraction of a second during a golf swing.

These two videos and the previous interaction is a representative sample of golf instruction — especially what happens online.