How to get better at golf without lessons: DON’T use if you’re looking for a quick fix
I like golf because your score is a direct and objective reflection of your hard work. You don’t have to rely on teammates, you don’t have to worry about a ref blowing the game, and your result is not at the mercy of a judge. IT’S JUST YOU versus the golf course.
But how do you prepare and practice for a challenge like that? Are golf lessons the best way to prepare? Are lessons worth it? And are they right for you?
To be honest, if you’re looking for the FASTEST way to get better at golf, lessons are the way to go. BUT not everyone can afford that, nor is everyone ready for a golf instructor. So, if you’re looking for a sustainable and affordable way, this three-step system will help ANY golfer get better.
Below, I will break it down into three sections:
- How to get better without lessons for low-skilled golfers
- How to get better without lessons for medium-skilled golfers
- How to get better without lessons for highly-skilled golfers
In this blog, I share my experience playing competitive golf for 20+ years without ever taking a lesson, what I learned, and how any golfer can apply my experiences to their game to become a better player.
What is the best way to get better at golf without an instructor? My 3-step system
As much as I would love to be a “put your head down and play more” guy, I know that that mentality is not the best or most sustainable way to get better. Sure, I will give you drills that you can work on endlessly, like Phil Mickelson’s famous “circle drill” (which I’ll go over in detail below), but getting better requires more than hard work and motivation. It’s also about setting up a winning environment.
Keep in mind this is a recipe, and these are the ingredients. If you are strong in one aspect and lacking in another, like cake without icing, your game will be bitter.
These 3 steps will act as guiding principles to better rounds.
1. Feeling like a part of a community: Surround yourself with other players.
2. Working on growth: through practice. I will include good drills below.
3. Acknowledgment of progress: satisfaction through internal recognition. Like solving a puzzle, figuring out the right formula for getting better at golf is extremely rewarding. Acknowledge those wins, and let them snowball.
Next, we will translate that into real, actionable tips for each skill level of golfers.
3 tips for beginners (95+)
Community: Join a weekday league or gather friends for an early Saturday morning group.
The purpose of this should be to have fun and enjoy each other’s presence—no need to stress about your skill level. With that said, be attentive to the players around you. How do they swing? How do they address the ball? How do they putt? I would highly recommend asking them golf-related questions. Looking for golf buddies? Another great resource that is free are the 3 apps listed below. These can help you meet new friends and golfers.
- PGA team golf: The City Tour
- 18Birdies
- Readytoplaygolf.com
Work on growth/practice drills: Focus on your chipping.
Grab your pitching wedge, sand wedge, 9 iron, and a bucket of balls. The beauty of this is you don’t even have to go to a club or course to do it; you can simply just chip in your backyard or even in your house with plastic balls. As a kid, I used to love chipping in my backyard with my dad. We’d set up the cornhole boards as targets. One point if you hit the board, three points if you made it in the hole.
Why do I recommend chipping before putting? Chipping or “pitching” is a microcosm of the full swing. If you can’t make good contact chipping, then you won’t be able to with a full swing. Therefore, we have to start small and build up to the full swing. Chipping will give you confidence, feel, and “touch.” Master chipping before your full swing. Lessons from an instructor cannot teach you the feeling of the club being comfortable in your hands; that is what this drill is all about.
Acknowledge progress: YouTube videos, YouTube videos, YouTube videos.
In 2007, I was a freshman in high school and dreamed of making my high school golf team. The only problem? I was oblivious to what I was doing, and I got cut my first year after two rounds in the high 90s.
Wanting to get better, I used YouTube as my primary resource to learn and correct deficiencies with my swing. Youtube helped me exit the “oblivious stage” of golf, and it helped me recognize what a good golfer looked like. It also shaped my understanding of what I could work on. Seeing small progress steps like how to correctly grip a club became addicting. My curiosity grew.
I will never forget watching on repeat the side angle of Tiger Woods’ swinging in slow motion to a violin playing in the background. It was art. Having that image of what a swing should look like when I went out to play was a massive confidence booster. I would swing and pretend like I was Tiger Woods. Now I had something to aspire toward.
Finally, it is VERY important to know in 2007 Youtube was not what it is today in 2023. There wasn’t much of an algorithm designed to make you stay on the site longer, and podcasts weren’t a thing yet. I only used YouTube when my trial and error was failing me, and I would recommend you do the same. It’s very easy these days to confuse studying, reading, or watching YouTube videos with progress and improvement. They are not the same. As you get better, your YouTube use should decrease.
3 tips for medium-skilled golfers (80-94)
Community: Sign up for a golf tournament.
By now, you have become more comfortable with your game. You have something to aspire toward, and you have friends in the community. The next step is to get out of your comfort zone by signing up for a tournament. This is not only a great test of your skills but also an impactful opportunity for you to grow your desire to be better.
Work on growth/practice drills: Focus on improving your putting.
Especially 5 feet and in. For the 2021/2022 season, what percentage of 10-foot putts were made by PGA Tour professionals? 41%! The best in the world are making 10-foot putts in 4 out of 10 attempts. What do you think the average amateur Is making from that range? Spoiler alert: It’s not good. Even from five feet, amateurs are making less than 40%. So if you attempt 18 3- to 7-foot putts a round, you’re only making 50% of them. An accessible way to improve your score would be to increase that percentage. Below I’ve included a drill to do just that.
Phil’s famous “circle drill” entails that he makes 100 straight 3-foot putts before he can go home. While making 100 in a row isn’t realistic for us average golfers, I do think the drill is something every golfer can benefit from.
A more digestible number might be 15 or 25 instead of 100. I’m fully convinced this was the most important drill that dropped my average from an 85 to an 80.
Acknowledge progress: As a medium-skilled golfer, you are past the point of “can I do this?”. By now, you should be asking yourself, “how can I do this?”. In order to answer the question of how to become better at golf, we must understand our game a little better. We have to start tracking our stats.
In high school, we had the “1000 holes club.” If you could play 1000 holes over the summer, you were given a shirt. The best lesson I learned from this summer challenge was how important it is to track your rounds and stats! My junior to senior year, I played somewhere in the 1,600 range and some 20 tournaments. I made a huge jump in improvement.
Tracking my stats became addicting; it was a fun game. I now had data to tell stories about each round. Tracking my stats made it less about the number I shot, and more about the finer details like “greens in regulations,” “number of putts,” and “strokes within 100 yards.”
3 tips for highly-skilled golfers (<79)
Congratulations! You’re truly a great golfer. You’ve put in a ton of work, and you have earned the right to focus on critiquing the tiniest details in the hopes of gaining the slightest advantages. You have done 99% of the heavy work. Now, it is time to focus on the 1%: focus on expanding your mind.
Community: Find your golf buddy.
You need to be surrounded by the best talent. As a highly-skilled golfer, it’s less about being a part of the larger community and more about finding your “GOLF BUDDY.” Ideally, this person will be just as skilled as you, hold similar goals, and will keep you accountable. These highly ambitious buddies are essential to breaking through to the next level.
“They were really driven. I remember them feeding off each other,” Grace Na, a former teammate of Jordan Spieth, told Golf Channel when referring to Justin Thomas and Jordan’s relationship growing up playing junior golf together. “You could tell they wanted to beat each other, even though they were on the same team. They motivated each other to bring the best out of themselves.”
Of course, now Jordan and Justin are two of the best professional golfers on the planet.
I was lucky enough myself to have a golf buddy in the summer of 2010. If it wasn’t for teaming up with a lifelong buddy named Lee House, I would have been far less of the player I was able to become. He was the “ace” and friend I aspired to be. I owe a lot to Lee, Brian Shircliff, Alex Kepley and the rest of the St. X golf community. Find your golf buddy. These rivalries or “frenemies” are significant for more than one reason.
Work on growth/practice drills: Play the forward tees.
You need to expand your thinking and creativity. Playing the forward tees might sound silly, but you’d be surprised by how aggressive you will be forced to play. It is another great test of your course management skills as you will be presented with a lot of situations where you’ll have to decide between going for the green off the tee or laying up.
As a highly skilled golfer, you will need to be comfortable going low, taking risks, and wanting more when you’re under par. This drill will do just that. Think you’ve mastered the front tees? You can now move back one set.
Acknowledge progress: Analyze your own swing.
As a highly skilled golfer, you aren’t solving basic 2 + 2 math anymore. Like a trigonometry student who needs the Texas instrument TI-84, you need more advanced tools too. To know your swing and monitor progress in the finest detail, I would recommend tools like the deWiz Golf swing modifier.
Can I improve in golf without lessons?
As a golfer, I was cut from the high school team. I was also one of two upperclassmen asked to try out for the JV team as a junior. Miraculously, I made some improvements and was able to claw my way into the Ohio high school state tournament my senior year. From there, I went on to play in three national championships in college with the NCCGA. So I know for a fact it is possible to get better without lessons.
Are any pro golfers self-taught?
Still not convinced it’s a viable option? Take a look at these professionals who never took a lesson:
- Lee Trevino: 6 x major champion
- Bubba Watson: 2 x major champion, 12 x PGA tour winner
- Jim Herman: 3 x PGA tour winner
So can you be a good golfer without lessons? Absolutely.
What percentage of golfers take lessons?
According to the National Golf Foundation, only 17% of golfers take lessons. On average, each golfer will take five sessions with an approximate cost of $50 a session.
So should you get golf lessons?
Trying to get better without lessons is like riding your bike to work instead of driving a car. It’s less efficient, and it will definitely take longer, but some people enjoy the ride and the many benefits of doing it yourself. Everyone’s situation is different, though, and the way I learned golf shouldn’t be the way you have to!
If you’ve hit a wall, you’ve invested a lot of time in your game, and you care about getting better, I would recommend taking lessons. You’re probably going to spend the money on range balls or rounds anyways, so why not be efficient?
If you don’t have the luxury of belonging to a country club, or maybe you are not ready to invest in a golf instructor, then take my tips from above, and use Youtube (but only when necessary).
Whether you take lessons or not, with the right mindset and drive, your potential is endless.
