Golf Advice That Actually Made Me Worse | Episode 9

Have you ever watched a golf tip on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram, headed straight to the range, tried it out... and somehow ended up playing worse?

You're not alone.

In this episode of The Weekend Golfer Podcast, we're talking about the golf advice that actually hurt our games and why weekend golfers may be suffering from information overload. From too many swing thoughts to constantly chasing the next "secret move," we're breaking down why keeping it simple might be the best advice of all.

In This Episode:

 🎯 Why too many swing thoughts can ruin your game
 📱 The problem with endless golf tips on social media
 ⛳ Learning to trust your swing
🤦 Swing Confession

Whether you're trying to break 100, break 90, or just enjoy the game more, this episode is for every golfer who's ever stood over the ball thinking about 17 different swing tips at once.

👇 Join the conversation:
 What's a piece of golf advice that actually made you worse? Drop it in the comments!

📲 Follow The Weekend Golfer

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Have you ever watched one of those YouTube videos where they're giving you a specific golf tip? You take that tip, you go to the range, you try it out, you get on the golf course, you're gonna try it out again, but then somehow you are playing worse than you were before before you understood or learned this new golf tip. Yeah, we've all kind of been there. I've been there too. Today we're talking about just that. We're talking about golf advice that actually makes me or makes us worse. And is weak in golfers while maybe less advice is probably more beneficial and why we should need to take less advice and maybe more trust in our own game. I'm Calvin, and today we're talking about something that every golfer has experienced, and that is golf advice. Not necessarily good golf advice, not sometimes helpful golf advice. I'm talking about the kind of golf advice that completely wrecks your confidence and has you questioning really everything you knew about your swing. Um, if you've ever left the range with six different swing thoughts and had zero confidence in what you were doing, then this episode today is for you. We've also got some other exciting things that we're going to be hitting on today and uh continuing in our wonderful series of Let's Talk About It, which you can catch every Tuesday and Thursday on my TikTok and Instagram pages. If you have not, go ahead and start following so you can watch out and listen to those topics and debate. Let's talk, let's get in the comments, let's talk about it. But without further ado, let's get into it today. All right, first thing is first, and we are super excited about finally getting this in a place to where I feel that I can get you guys some quality golf vlogs. So, guess what? This hopefully this coming week, uh, without any weather that may be crazy or whatnot, I'm gonna give you guys my first course vlog in probably a very long time. Um, there are some good course vlogs that are on my current channel right now, they're probably like three or four years old. Um, obviously a lot has changed, even my golf bag has changed. If you guys have watched that video, make sure you click on that. I'll leave that up here. And um, just definitely excited. So this Thursday, um, at this time of this recording, it is currently a Monday. Um, but this Thursday, going to be playing with my dad and one of his buddies at uh Highland Creek here in Charlotte area. Uh, we've played this course actually. I think this is the last course I've recently just played. So going back out there uh to play on Thursday. Um, hopefully, you know, weather permitting again, have a good round. But want to give you guys everything that's happening, um, kind of like almost more or less a shot by shot, everything to go down. I finally got my mic set up, I got everything that I need to try to get you guys that content. So, super excited about that. If you want to see those, definitely leave a like, leave a subscribe, and comment as well, because we're gonna be bringing more of those. I have some collabs coming as well. If you guys don't follow one of my good friends, make sure you follow him. I'll put his link down here in the description as well as right here. Um, follow at JP Swings, um, a good friend of mine who's doing his content creation right now as well. We gotta support the small content creators. We all want to, you know, eventually get to that point where you know we're going to those like you know content, uh content creator invitationals and internet invitationals, all those good things, but we have to start somewhere. So some more support the small guys like myself. And uh all right, now that we've gotten the announcement, so to speak, out of the way, let's get into the the the main thing, the nitty-gritty of what we're gonna be talking about today. So, really the golf advice that we get and how it relates to making us work, making us worse. Um, one of the biggest things that the one of the biggest mistakes I think that we make as weekend golfers is that we are constantly changing things in our swing. Like we are watching, you know, YouTube videos, we're watching Instagram, TikTok. Some of us are even probably up a little bit later in the day or you know, catch that time period of golf channel where there are like helpful tips and things that are going on, which is fine. But then the problem is that now we're suddenly we have a new grip, we have a new takeaway, we have a new wrist position, maybe we even have a new swing plane or working on a new swing plane, and we're doing it all in the same week. Like the problem isn't necessarily the advice by itself, the problem is when we take the advice and now we're trying to do all of it at the same time. That is the true problem that I think we have as as weekend golfers. And I did have three things that I put down even in my notes as I'm looking here that I want us just to kind of deep dive into to kind of expound upon why I feel like this is what's leading to us making us worse on the golf course. Um, the first point that I wanted to make is kind of what I was hinting at right then and right before, is that we just have too many swing thoughts happening right now. Um, the average golfer or the the average weekend golfer, we don't need five swing thoughts. Most of us barely need one, to be quite honest. We're probably like you're you're probably we've all probably experienced this. Like we we hit one bad shot, right? And now we're suddenly thinking, okay, keep my left arm straight. I need to rotate more, I may need to stay down, I may need to shift my weight on a chip, or I may not need, I'm swaying too much. And before you know it, you're standing over the ball trying to solve a math problem. Like we're we're doing we're in our mind, we're wrestling with so much standing over the ball. And I'm a big advocate for if I hit a bad shot, I can I I should my swing should be consistent enough to where I can feel exactly what did not happen properly. Um, a lot of times it may be different in those types of moments. I may hit my first T-shot, and maybe I felt like I came up a little bit because I have a tendency sometimes to, as I'm getting to impact, I get up on my feet instead of locking in position and staying into that shot. Sometimes I can feel that, and I know based off what the ball does, how that like what happened. I can feel it. So a lot of times it's the feel, but at the same time, I hit that shot now. I can't go back and fix it. I want to take that shot and get myself out of trouble. Yeah, I may have a bogey or something worse on the scorecard, but I'm not trying to have so many swing thoughts because it can just be a simple, oh, I I sat up a little bit. Oh, I leaned in too much. Like I just want one barely really one thought. I want to be able to know immediately because of how my swing and what I felt consistently, what feels good. I should be able to just pick up right then and there, hey, what happened wrong? So, one, we have too many swing thoughts. That's why I think we are getting worse on the golf course when it comes to the advice. Secondly, this I'm a little bit biased too as well, because obviously I'm trying to grow myself and grow the weekend golf content as a social media platform, but we have to be careful with that because social media will make us think that we're broken. What I mean by that is every time you scroll and you see in golf content, someone has like, oh, the perfect shot, you know, the shot tracer, it looks beautiful, it looks like it lands like 275 yards in the middle of the fairway, then they hit their second shot. Like, that's good. Granted, they may be a good golfer, or they could have had six mulligans on that hole and only and only posted what was the good shots. Just a thought. But we see the golf content, we see the swing, and it is a perfect swing, or it's a perfect drill, and you know, they may have this secret move that helps them get through the ball or get the get something out of it, and it creates this feeling that you like we're always one fix away from you know having the best round of our lives. Here's the truth though most of us as weekend golfers don't need a complete rebuild in our golf game. We just need consistency. We don't need to pull on, oh, I want uh to chip like Jason Day, I want to hit drives like Rory, I want to put like Bryson or somebody else that's a really good putter right now. Like we don't need to try to build the perfect complete game. Your game is going to be different than the person that you're playing with. You just don't want to be in a place to where your game is different from the round that you played yesterday to the round that you're playing in two days. That's where we get into the issue. You just want consistency across the board. Then again, going back to what I was talking about earlier, to where you just feel immediately what went wrong, and then being able to make that adjustment on the fly, hit your next shot, fix it, see it, maybe you have a different issue, great, but you don't have that same one. I'd rather have a fade on one, uh fade on one drive, come back, hit a draw on the next one, and it's they're both still in play versus hitting a fade on one and then hitting a slice on the next one and a slice on the next one. If I'm getting slices, we got a bigger issue. But if I can find the consistency of getting that same feel, that's what we want. Not just diving into social media trying to figure out what the next fix is. And the last thing that I wanted to say about this, point number three, trust your swing. And what I mean by that is, you know, golfers, we like the golfers I know who play their best are always aren't always the most talented golfer. Like, like my dad, for instance, he is not the most talented golfer, but he plays enough golf to where he knows what is where he's consistent and where he can be good at. They're golfers who basically just commit to the shot. Like they pick their, they're standing over the ball, they pick their target, they trust their swing, and they go. They're not having four or five different swing thoughts in that process, they're not thinking about the last hole where they hit a slice or they hit a too much of a draw, or maybe they messed up a putt. I've talked about in the past, that in the past, to where you have to take each hole as its own event. Like block the noise out of that hole. If you hit a birdie, great, that happened. But now you got to focus on this hole. If you hit a bogey or a double bogey on the last hole, great. Now you have to focus on this hole. Each hole is different. So picking a target, trusting what how you swing, having the same pre-shot routine for every single shot, I think is very key as well. That way you just again build that consistency and that consistent feel that you have before every shot. And then at the end of the day, trust in your swing and doing what you do best and hitting the ball and putting it in play to where you need it. I think that is the biggest, the biggest thing that we need. And just to kind of you know recap it, don't have so many swing thoughts. Social media, don't dive into it so much to where it makes you feel like you're broken. And then lastly, just trust your swing. Because we don't want to be on, you know, a shot or on a hole where many of us are like trying to rebuild a swing on hole number seven, and by the time you get to hole 18, you're swinging the same way you did on hole number one. Like trust your swing, trust the same way that it feels every single time, and then that's what the range is for. The range is for you to go out and make the tweaks, make the necessary that is practice to make the necessary adjustments for how you played in your previous round. I'm a big advocate for not trying to fix your golf swing unless you really need to adjust something. Don't fix it in the middle of a round, because then that can just throw your whole round upside down. All right, next I want to get into a what I would call swing confession. Um, so I have absolutely gone to the range after watching a Rick Shields video or a uh a golf estate video or me and my golf, if you know guys know them guys. Um like I've definitely watched somebody's golf video and went to the driving range, tried to completely work on this whole thing. It may have changed my swing, and at the end of the day, I didn't improve anything. Um, like I didn't try. Well, really, I didn't even improve the swing, I completely changed it. Um and then I was starting to wonder like why I wasn't even hitting the ball. Like I was doing stuff I did when I first started playing golf, like swinging and topping the ball. And at that point, of course, it gets frustrating. We've all done it, and if you've ever done that, welcome to the club. Congratulations. Um, the biggest thing I will say about that is the again, the advice is not the problem. The advice is good. These guys are where they are, Rick Shields, me and my golf, golficity. These guys are at the top tier. I mean, Rick Shields is like the grandfather of golf content on YouTube and content creation, all that stuff. But these guys gotten to where they are because they know what they've talked about and they've been doing this for a long time. And one of the things that I thought about was okay, my golf swing is not like Rick Shields. My golf swing is not like you know the guys from Golf City or me and my golf or whoever. My golf swing is my golf swing. So what I ended up doing is I took a couple videos of just me hitting like a couple wedges, seven-iron, driver, three wood from like the front angle and also from behind. And I just kind of went back home one day, just kind of re-watched those videos and just tried to find okay, what are small things that I'm doing that I know I probably shouldn't do. One of the biggest things I saw was I noticed that I mean, with my wedges, it wasn't so much, and with my seven iron sometimes, but primarily with my driver and my three wood, by the time I would get right to impact, my heels would come off the ground enough to where it looked like I was just like almost on my tiptoes, just swinging through the ball. And then like I would notice that I because I know in my mind, out on the range, those balls were going way different directions, this, that, and the third. I knew it wasn't a good round. But then even when I watched the one from behind and I'd see the ball initially, I could tell even just in my reaction and where the ball went, it wasn't a good shot. So I was like, okay, maybe I need to focus on just keeping anchored and staying in the ground and not so much of like picking my foot up until it might I hear the ball hit. And another thing I also noticed, like even from the front angle, is that even I what more or less with my irons and my wedges, was that once I'd hit the ball, right at impact, my head would turn to start looking at the ball. And then I was like, okay, maybe I shouldn't necessarily stay locked in, or what I would call now, like I'm a drummer, so I'd say I call it the pocket. Stay in the pocket as long as possible because most of the time, if I'm playing or if I'm hitting the ball, I can eventually find it. Like if I'm the only one hitting on the golf course at this hole, if I hit it or my playing partners, somebody gonna see the ball. I don't have to necessarily hit and look dead at it and try to figure out where it's going. So those those things helped me more, in my opinion, helped me more than the advice that I've gotten off of a YouTube video. Some YouTube videos have been great, like with chipping, with like Mr. Short Game, those guys, like those videos have helped in the capacity that I needed them for. But at the end of the day, I need to focus on what my swing and what I'm doing to help fix it. And I've learned more in re-watching myself than I have in watching a video and then trying to replicate that on the driving range. So my good tip for everybody would be to record yourself from a front view and from behind and review those, like honestly, like watching film, like review yourself, watch film on yourself to be able to see what are some things that you might be doing. That can that's my best advice for you is let your golf game tell you what advice you need. Instead of, you know, you can take the tips from you know a Rick Shields, Mr. Short Game, those guys, but focus on what your game and what your swing is doing first, and then make the adjustments from there. All right, my weekend golfers. One thing that we all know is that golf is hard enough to play. Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop searching for another tip and just start trusting the game that you already have. Work on fundamentals, the simple things, like the the simple things of just solid contact, making sure that you're staying locked in and loaded and ready to go on each swing, the routine, like basketball players have the same free throw routine. Why don't you have the same routine when you're about to hit the shot? Um, practice with a purpose. Uh the the thing that I feel like has really helped my game the most, especially the short game, is being very intentional of picking different targets. If you have a range that has different targets, use and use that to your advantage. Practice with a purpose. Put three shots on this one, three shots on that target. Same thing with your irons and your driver. Put yourself in positions to where you know that you're gonna be. Like make yourself an imaginary fairway and hit some shots like out there in the fairway or in the drive, like with a driver, same thing. Like practice with an intent and with a purpose. And remember, you do not need a perfect swing to have a great round. We just uh we all want just a consistent golf swing that you can trust and swings and shots that you know that you can hit. So I want to thank you all for listening to the weekend golfer podcast. If you guys enjoyed this video and this episode, make sure you guys are following on TikTok, on Instagram, you're following this YouTube channel because I know you're probably not subscribed and you're not you're not following it. So go ahead and do that. You know you want to. I appreciate it. And if you're one of the OGs, I want you to join the Weekend Golfer Clubhouse on Facebook. And again, I know that's why I said the OGs, because not a lot of us are really on Facebook that much anymore. But my OGs that are still on there, the clubhouse is basically a space for guys to be able to just ask questions about different golf tips, things of that nature. It's like imagine it's the clubhouse for a reason. It's the 19th hole where people can come together, just have conversations. There's already been chats in there, people you know asking for maybe some good places to play golf in the area, things of that nature. It's a great time. But until next time, until the next episode, I want you guys to keep it simple on the range, keep it simple on the course, play your game, trust your swing. And remember, this is the weekend golfer where everyday golfers like me and you, we get our voice. You guys stay blessed.