I was at the range the other day watching a man “helping” a woman with her golf swing. My kids and I couldn’t help but smile. Not because she wasn’t trying but because the advice was coming in hot and non-stop.
One swing in and he was already dissecting shoulder turn, grip, ball position, swing plane and head movement. There’s no way a human brain could process all of that and still hit a golf ball. His best tip might’ve been when he told her to wait a second before she swung so he could get out of the way.
Anyway, it got me thinking about just how much bad advice gets thrown around at driving ranges and on golf courses. Here are a few common ones to look out for, but let’s be honest, there are dozens more.
“You lifted your head — that’s why you topped it.”
It’s the go-to line when someone tops the ball. The concept sounds like a good one and it even makes logical sense but, in most cases, the golfer didn’t lift their head. Typically, they lose their posture, fail to shift their weight or extend too early through the shot.
Players like Henrik Stenson and David Duval rotate through impact with their head turning early. Yet they still compress the ball.
Keep your posture — not your head — down.
“You’re too steep — that’s why you sliced it.”
This sounds smart but it completely ignores how ball flight works and the role that the club face takes in the shots that you hit.
Steep swings can lead to inconsistent strikes but they don’t cause a slice. A slice comes from an open clubface.
You could have a shallow path and still slice it if the face isn’t squared up. You could be steep and hit a push-draw. If you fix the steepness but don’t address the face, the ball’s still going right, just on a lower trajectory.
Fix the face first. Always.
“Move the ball back — you’ll stop chunking it.”
If you are hitting behind the ball, one of the tips that golfers like to give each other about hitting behind the ball is to change the ball position. It seems logical that if your low point is behind the ball, you just need to move it back in your stance.
This isn’t really the case.
Moving the ball back makes your swing steeper, delofts the club and leaves you less margin for error. That 8-iron you’re trying to hit now flies like a 5-iron and you may have a very difficult time stopping it on the green.
While the occasional chunked shot could be caused by ball position, most of the time the issue is weight shift and low-point control.
“Don’t use your driver — it’s too risky.”
This advice gets shared with high handicappers quite often. The logic here is that more loft will offer golfers more control so the driver should just stay in the bag.
In reality, avoiding driver often hurts more than it helps.
Modern drivers are built for forgiveness. Most 3-woods aren’t any more accurate and they leave you with a longer, tougher approach. Shot Scope has done studies on this and found that the closer the ball is to the hole (even if it’s in the rough), the easier it is to score. The driver will get you closer than a 3-wood.
Unless you’re facing a tight tee shot with a forced layup, the driver is almost always the smarter play, especially if you’ve spent time learning how to hit it.
You don’t fix your driver by leaving it in the bag. You fix it by learning to swing it better.
“Grip the club like you’re holding an injured bird.”
I’ve experimented with softer grip pressure myself and worked with golfers trying to do the same, and when that grip gets too light, the clubface starts doing unpredictable things. The hands get lazy, the face gets flippy and the shot dispersion is much less predictable.
Try to gradually loosen your grip during practice until you start losing control. At that point, tighten back up just enough to feel like you’re back in charge. That’s your ideal grip pressure.
The goal isn’t a fragile grip — it’s a connected and in-control one.
Final thoughts
Golf instruction has never been more accessible but that also means more bad advice is floating around than ever before. If a tip sounds catchy but doesn’t actually explain why something is happening, question it. Learn your swing and your game and take a few lessons to learn which advice you should be following.
James
11 months ago
Hear it all the time at the range. At my home course, there’s a man with a horrible swing and his wife and daughter swing exactly the same because he taught them. They are all awful players.
My son is a college player and all I did was show him basic grip and stance. He figured it out himself from there until time to get an instructor. I never taught him just encouraged.