10 things I learned spending 2 days with the best golf instructors

Let’s start with the facts: I learned much more more than 10 things at our Top 100 Teachers Summit at Cabot Citrus Farms in Brooksville, Fla., earlier this week. But I can’t give away those secrets right away.

GOLF’s annual Top 100 Teachers Retreat always produces a treasure trove of learning goodness as the best minds in the game gather for days of fellowship, networking, workshops and education. It’s also a time for us – GOLF.com and GOLF Magazine – to gather a ton of content to use for the coming year.

My job was simple. I pulled aside dozens of teachers to get helpful tips for recreational players, which I plan to write about a lot more when the calendar turns to 2025. But with the summit still fresh in my mind, some advice is in order, too. Here are 10 quick hitters, with brief marching orders for each (because we’ll be covering some of them in more depth in the coming months).

Play from tees pro do. A kind

Amateurs rarely play from the right tip. It’s usually quite far, and we’ve written about it before the joys of taeing it forwardbut what should be the right patio for you? Tom Stickney of Johnathan’s Landing Club in Jupiter, Fla., says it’s easy: Play off the same tees that let you hit the same clubs the pros would.

“Enjoy yourself. It’s hard enough as it is. If they can’t hit all the par-4s in regulation and at least one of the par-5s in two, they’re on the wrong tees,” says Stickney. “You want to be able to hit what a pro can. So if a pro is going to hit a wedge, they might hit it from 160 and you hit the wedge from 80, but then you have to be on top of where you can hit next.

Teachers are learning too

Parker McLachlin, aka The Short Game Chef, put on a bunker clinic (literally) on Tuesday, taking questions and hitting shots from a deep bunker to various pins — even the devilish short-sided ones – with ease. He’s magic with a wedge in his hands, and it was interesting to see the top 1 percent of teachers in the game engaged, asking questions and still trying to improve. (Use the code GOLF50 to get $50 off a subscription from The Short Game Chef to gain access to more short game tips. Register here. Offer ends January 10, 2025.)

Remember why you are there

How do you fix a round gone wrong? Erika Larkin says it’s all about your mindset. In short, she learns to play with joy.

“You can’t play well if you’re coming from a place of fear,” Larkin says. “So you have to understand that you take to hit this next shot, you take to play golf today – you frame it differently. So if you’re in a place where you’re like, “Oh no, everyone’s watching and this is going to be a terrible moment,” instead think, “I take to show what I have practiced, I HAVE a chance to do something great, me take to strike this blow right now and me take to be (on this course) today. How bad is life? How bad can it be?’ So you have to rotate it. It’s normal to feel nervous sometimes. If you’re really not playing well, it’s hard to really get all the mechanics right on the golf course, but you can try to fix the way you feel.”

There is 1 club to brag about

Looking to flaunt just one part of your bag next season? Joe Hallett tells him get in shape for a driver that will help you get the ball in the air properly and help minimize any deflection in your ball flight.

Don’t make this egregious etiquette blunder

There are many etiquette lapses that are made on the golf course, but Joe Plecker may have had the most peculiar ethical quandary: don’t play competitive music in your band. Why? It’s just annoying. And loudly. He has a point.

Narrow road? Do this

Pin it down, says Hallett.

“Having the driver to the bottom of the grip on a short par 4, it’s amazing how straight you can hit the ball,” says Hallett. “The swing gets shorter, the pace is better and the ball just kind of takes flight in the middle of the trajectory.”

An easy drill to hit more greens

Struggling with your short irons, or from around 150 yards or more? You may just be hitting the wrong club. Adam Smith suggests taking out three clubs at the 150-yard mark — like a 7-, 8-, and 9-iron, for example — and hitting balls with each. He says you’d be surprised how often players don’t know the right levels and hit the wrong club at first. This simple test will help.

Don’t worry about trying to be more consistent

Jason Sutton does NO like when golfers say they want to become more consistent. Why?

“There is no consistency in golf; it’s a very broad term,” he says. “If you have to define consistency, if you had to, I’d say trying to get your bad shots and your good shots closer together. Trying to approximate your firing distribution or pattern. But I hate it. I like the word repeatability and functionality. Those two things make the most sense.”

Sutton says he would define repeatability as someone’s ability to repeat a pattern of their golf swing more often, which would make your distribution narrower. As for functionality, he says it’s basically putting all the pieces together from a technical standpoint to fit what you’re trying to do as a goal.

Do these things and your results will improve, but just don’t say that dreaded word ENDURANCE.

What should club fans take away?

A 3-wood, many teachers say.

Golf is not that complicated, so don’t overdo it

Best tip Hallett ever received? It came years ago in his playing days when he had the opportunity to play alongside World Golf Hall of Famer Paul Runyan. Hallett was reading a long, big throw when Runyan walked by and said, “It’s not a hard throw, son, it’s just a long throw.”

“And all of a sudden it just reframes your mind,” says Hallett. “It’s just a shot, just a shot, but we’re always like, this is so complicated.”

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