jfull1914

Dude I clearly said i hired a mental coach.

Maybe you missed my update to my original post because this is making a lot of assumptions that have already been addressed.

Thanks everyone for the responses. I can’t respond to everyone but I did try to read them. TLDR: I’m quitting golf indefinitely at the end of 2023. Do not try to talk me out of it. We are well over a year after my initial post and I have decided to quit golf at the end of 2023. I’m quitting at the end of the year because that’s the quickest, I can resign my country club membership. I likely won’t play again between now and then unless some buddies want to play. After my initial post on here, I reached out to Urban Golf Performance and the director of instruction decided to take me on as a client. This was encouraging and I decided to give them one last try. I signed up for another lesson package but after a year I haven’t improved at all. I can barely break 100 now. I have a 2-way miss. And my body hurts for 4-5 days after playing 18 holes. I’ve tried to explain to every instructor what I feel my root issue is, but everybody wants to fix the symptoms. I explain that even though the shot may have looked good on Trackman, I’m experiencing tremendous rib and, back, and shoulder pain because my body is getting stuck. This means that even on “good” shots my lead elbow is violently impacting my ribs and I’m yanking the club through the ball because there’s no other place for the club to go. This has led to repeated pain in my upper back and lead shoulder. Also, really bad golfers elbow. I now have to see a chiropractor 3 times a week just to function. I understand that golf is a difficult game that can never truly be conquered but with the amount of time, energy, and money, I’ve put into getting better I’d want to have at least some improvement to show for it. I started lessons back in 2016 as a 19 handicap (not with UGP) and 7 years later, I’m only a 18.5 handicap. There was about a 2 month stretch where my handicap got below a 15 bc I was playing really easy wide open municipal courses. But that’s as close to any level of improvement I’ve seen. Well, I can hit the ball a lot farther than in 2016, which unfortunately just means farther OB. I’ve had a wide variety of instructors over the years. Even some who’ve been giving instruction longer than I’ve been alive. None have been able to help me. It’s clear the issue is me and not them. Now I have so many conflicting swing thoughts that I have nightmares about my swing. When I’m awake I have crippling anxiety over why I can’t seem to improve despite doing all the things you’re supposed to do and working really hard at practicing and playing. It’s gotten so bad that sometimes I make up lies to get out of playing with my buddies. I don’t even keep score when we play but the mental torment of having absolutely no idea where my ball is gonna go is too much. I’ve gone to therapy, even hired a mental golf coach, but nothing has worked. So I think the message is clear, golf is not for me. I’ll probably still watch it on tv but that’s about it. I’ll try to find another outdoor hobby that brings me some modicum of joy. Nothing can replace the love I have for golf, but that love is unrequited. It’s time to cut my losses. Don’t tell me to “do my research” I’ve already done that. Don’t tell me “focus on my short game”, that’s the only reason I CAN break 100. Don’t tell me to “practice with a purpose”, I always do that. I guarantee that whatever advice the people on these forums have, I have already tried it for an extended period of time. I won’t sell my clubs on the off chance that in 10 yrs or so, I’ll forget about my trauma and pick up this foolish pursuit again.

Copped some new ball markers from Etsy

I just can’t wear Squairz off GP. Nick Faldo just isn’t cool to me .

I have these in Black, I love the way they look but the suede was NOT a good idea for golf. The black looks dusty as hell after a few holes. Especially during pollen season. I have the Jordan Cement 4 Golf (also one of my favorite colorways in regular Js) I HAD the Jordan golf 13s but felt the low top shape just made them look like AliBaba counterfeits These are my favorites right now I wear them every chance i get my DREAM shoe is the Chicago Jordan 1s, but the resell market for those is downright CRIMINAL. They're $2500 in my size!!! I cosign all the airmax 90 golf shoe comments. Those are some of my favs too. I might not play good, but my gear is always dope

I was looking at their jumbo grips on grips for less and they're $17/each!!! . I currently play Winn DriTac midsize but I get a lot of hand fatigue trying to hold on to such a small grip. I've had them for about 6 months and I can't ever seem to grip the club in a way that feels comfortable. I didn't think my hands are exceptionally large but the only grips that allow me to grip the club properly with little tension are oversized. I hope it's not early arthritis which my mom suffered from. I'm only 37!

It’s more that I don’t want to paint them as a bad place just because I haven’t had success with them. I’m currently going in a different direction with instruction but I’m definitely not leaving 10+ sessions on the table. I’ll just use some of their other services.

I was not taking a lesson every 8 days. 72 sessions includes gym training, physical therapy, and club fitting in addition to the lessons. Also, I have not used all of my available sessions. I will say that the people at UGP were trying to push me to use up my sessions as fast as possible, but I put the kibosh on that. I was taking a lesson every other week. A cadence I was comfortable with. And I do have a practice routine developed by my coaches . I really wish people on this forum weren't so interested in trying to "well actually" everyone.

A lot of people are surprised by this number but I'd say this price is pretty standard for Los Angeles. It works out to about $165-170/session. I signed up for 72 lessons over the course of 20 months or so. They definitely have the best facilities on my side of town and are full service. They do charge you for water during your lesson, which I thought was tacky since they turned off the water fountains b/c of covid. But yea, it's a sh!t-ton of money to spend to not see results. I gave my coaches clear goals and benchmarks that I wanted to hit and we simply did not accomplish any of them except for an increase in distance. But even the distance gains, can't be dialed up on command because of the inconsistency.

The thing that's frustrating is that I LOVE practicing. I hit the range at least 3 times a week for at least 2 hours (usually about 30-45 mins of drills/block practice and the rest of the time variable practice hitting to a variety of targets) and usually play Saturday or Sunday or both. The place where I practice provides me pretty much the same metrics that I get from trackman, so I can get confirmation of why my ball did what it did. So i can tell if my path was in-to-out etc. Shawn Clement reviewed my swing on Monday and told me my setup was incorrect. I adjusted my tilt and moved my ball further back in my stance like he suggested, and suddenly I'm able to swing in-to-out with ease. That's something my other coaches never picked up on. I always told them that my early release was a compensation but they just kept telling me "release the club later" which led to more tension in my swing and a host of other issues. Next hurdle is transition. I've been complaining about that to my coaches since at least 2016, which was like 5 teachers ago. My swing looks good on video (especially my backswing) but I've always known it was wrong because it never felt like it flowed. And on the course where you only get one try to execute a shot, I can't keep swinging until I stop getting stuck on my back foot lol. I'll give this a gander. They used to have the instructors listed on the site, I don't know why they took them off. But yea, I'll def ask for a different instructor for my last few lessons. I think they keep giving me the young guys because I'm not as rich as the other clients. But I'll be more persistent this time around.

Yea I’ve definitely lost confidence in them. Hell I’ve almost quit the game because of my frustration.

Yea I’m VERY communicative. I ask a lot of questions and tell them what’s working and what’s not. I just think they don’t listen. The grip issue has been a big pet peeve. Both instructors said my grip was fine and it obviously wasn’t. I told them I felt that my transition needed work, again they said it was fine, meanwhile I’m constantly getting stuck on my back foot. Don’t get me started on the many lessons we had on the release. I kept telling them that something was wrong (my grip) they suggested lighter grip pressure which only made the club flying around in my hand worse and led to a nagging thumb injury on my lead hand. The more I reflect on the last 2 yrs, the more upset I get

I've been taking lessons at Urban Golf Performance here in Los Angeles since August 2020. They have a number of tour pros who they work with, the most notable being Collin Morikawa. They helped address a number of swing issues I had, particularly my over the top swing. I've seen gains in my metrics like distance and club head speed. I've also learned a ton about my swing and club face awareness. The trackman data has been invaluable. HOWEVER, and this is a huge however, I haven't made any progress in well over a year. I've gotten so bad that I can't break 100 anymore. I used to be fairly reliably in the 80s before my lessons. I always hear, "you're gonna get worse before you get better" but it's been over a year of s***** golf. I'm someone who tracks all their stats so I have the data to back it up. My handicap used to be a 13. Now I'm an 18. My highest since I got serious about lessons back in 2016. I've spent about $12K on lesson so far with UGP, and I think I have about 10 lessons left. But I've found better success from Shawn Clement on Youtube. His approach has helped me swing the club faster and more accurately with less effort. Trying to swing like the folks at UGP wanted me to, resulted in a LOT of injuries, notably my back, lead arm and lead hand thumb. I changed coaches at UGP and requested a more experienced coach, only to be given another coach who's like 25-30 years old. Not to be ageist, but I have 15 years of bad habits to break. My coaches were children when I started golf. I just feel like they haven't seen enough swings to accurately get to the root cause of my swing issues. I'm a member over at Shawn Clement's Wisdom In Golf Premium (exponentially cheaper at $40/mo for Eagle level membership) and just from poking around on his site, I've been able to identify a number of flaws in my swing. Things such as my grip, which my UGP coaches said was "fine", meanwhile my grip was constantly flying around in my hand. One grip video of Shawn's fixed that immediately. The downside is it's all online so I don't get the hands on teaching like I get at UGP. So my question I guess is should I request a third new teacher at UGP and finish out my lesson package, or continue to go at it alone and with virtual swing analysis via Shawn? UGP does other stuff like fitness and physical therapy, so I could use my sessions toward that if you guys and gals, think I should go at it alone.

I went to Club Champion for a wedge fitting and absolutely HATED the wedges they fitted me for. It's hard to get a good wedge fitting indoors. I'm gonna give True Spec a try for a putter fitting in 2 days. Depending on how that goes, I might give them a shot for a driver fitting. I currently play the Epic Max LS with an Autoflex shaft but I get more ball speed with my 3W. I didn't get fit for the driver, I did get fit for the 3W. Hopefully I can find someone to take the Autoflex off my hands, if they can find me a better shaft combo lol. Possibly related, I just suck at hitting my driver and lessons have only made me worse