How many lessons do I need to play golf?
This question is difficult to answer but I'm going to answer this question in several ways in this post. I hear this question a lot about how many lessons do I need to play golf? This will depend on where you are at in the game. Have you been playing for years or are you a beginner golfer? What are your mechanics like right now? What would you like to accomplish by taking golf lessons? I'm going to answer these questions and many more to answer your main question about golf lessons.
What would you like to accomplish by taking golf lessons?
I think this is the best question to start with because this is the most important part of the question. Are you wanting to play golf once or twice a year? Break 90? Play in tournaments at a high level or local level? Each one of these would require more effort from the golf instructor and the student.
If you only want to play once or twice a year, which doesn't make sense to me, but this would require maybe one or two lessons. In these golf lessons I would go over grip, stance, posture and some what a basic motion of the golf swing. These one or two golf lessons would not allow for shortgame technique or just more detail of the golf swing. I don't believe this is the best way to attack the game but also not a very productive way on actually enjoying the game.
If you are a beginner, then you will need at least 5 lessons to learn how to properly swing the club, make better contact and get some basic instruction on the shortgame. This will usually get you to a point that you want to play on the golf course for the first time. This for some people is enough to be able to play with friends and work tournaments.
If you are wanting to break 90 or 80 then this would require more golf lessons but also practice time to be able to shoot these kind of scores. This also depends on your current technique or the areas you need to improve in the most. But usually these goals are going to need somewhere around 10 lessons depending on how close you are of reaching these goals already.
What are your current swing mechanics like right now?
If you are a beginner and have never even held a club and never played another sport like tennis, baseball or softball then you will probably need at least 5 to 10 golf lessons. If you have played other sports and swung a club a few times in your life then you can probably get a lot out of 5 golf lessons. All of these ideas will also be determined on how much you practice between the lessons. I recommend that you practice at least twice between lessons but preferably 3 or more times. Then this also goes back to my original question, what do you want to accomplish out of taking golf lessons?
I have seen beginners that come in with great mechanics of the golf swing but don't know how to execute what they are doing, how to make solid contact or how to repeat the good swings they are making. They still might need 5 golf lessons but they will be farther along than someone who has poor mechanics right out of the gate.
I have also seen people that are good players but make a lot of compensations to play the golf they are playing. This is usually some fine tuning to help hit a few more fairways and greens and better shortgame technique and shots that are being played.
Final thoughts on this question.
This question about, how many lessons do I need to play golf, is difficult to answer but hopefully I have given you more ideas on what is required to learn how to play this great game. It is a difficult game to play at a high level but it can be very satisfying as well. Its the only game you can play all your life and by yourself. What you have to realize as well is you get out of this game what you put into it, just like anything else in life. So go get golf lessons as soon as you can because it will help you to learn and play at the level you want much faster than trying to figure it out on your own or from the help of your friends.
