Hey guys, as some of you may know, I'm a PGA Professional & full time instructor - I teach around 40-50 seminars a year to PGA Apprentices, and we do this activity in most of the seminars. I thought it would be neat to see what the responses are from all of you in the forum. Here's the question:

What would you say is the most important trait/quality that makes a great golf instructor?

Simply put and IMHO :

The ability to relate all concepts to each student, clearly, simply and effectively. Regardless (or according to) of their level of play/stage of learning.

I think the most important trait for a PGA Pro to be an effective teacher is an ability to adapt.

By this, I mean an ability to convey the same concept or swing thought in different ways to people who have various learning styles. Some learn via practice and repetition while others learn via an understanding of the fundamentals/technical theories behind the principle.

this nailed it imo

I would add they should understand what their customer wants from the experience and attempt to deliver it. I have a *great* instructor, and I booked 10 hours with him, he correctly started me with the basics and iteratively worked on stuff, planning things out over those hours. For Christmas I got my brother in law an hour of coaching with my coach, he has a very bad swing but only had an hour to work. My coach realized he just wanted to learn some technique to play better in an hour, and basically latched onto all the low hanging fruit and helped him leave hitting a lot better. This impressed me because clearly my goal with the 10 hours and my brother in law's goal with this Christmas present were totally different and the instructor helped us both

Great answers! I agree completely with all of them. Certainly there are a lot of factors that make a great instructor - knowledge, experience, playing ability, etc. but it seems communication is the factor that separates good from great. It doesn't do any good if the instructor has all the technical knowledge in the world, but can't communicate it to the student in a way they can understand it. I believe this starts from the initial interview with the student - as Deathdonkey mentioned, his instructor knew that both students had different goals and he worked within those goals to give them both quality lessons.

I have plenty of success stories, but a story I share in my seminars is a failure story. When I was first teaching a guy came to me and had a small slice, we spent about 50 minutes fixing his slice, and as I was about to wrap up the lesson, he asked what he should do that weekend. As I was about to answer "practice," he said he was leaving after the lesson to fly to Oakmont to play in their member-guest! I felt awful - I had no business making a major change on a student right before probably the biggest event of his life. If I would have asked why he wanted a lesson, I could have prepared him for Oakmont, instead, he left confused and thinking of nothing but swing mechanics. I should have told him to putt balls from the back of his bathtub and try to stop them before the drain to get ready for the greens at Oakmont! Needless to say, he never returned for more instruction, and I learned a valuable lesson.

A couple of years later, I had a new client and (after learning my lesson the hard way) asked him what he wanted to get out of the lesson. He explained that his 13 year old daughter had been hit by a car and killed the day before, and his wife thought getting a golf lesson might get his mind off things for a short time. It was one of the most unique lessons I've every given, and he was very thankful for the time & the way things were handled.

The moral of the story - make sure your instructor knows what your goals are for your game!

A great golf instructor doesn't teach what he himself is working on in his own game and uses his entire knowledge base at all times, not just recent thoughts.


*edit* and apparently waking up at 6am to post on golf forums???

Reid!! Where've you been?

Chemical Engineering at OSU. ugh. I think I fired up Pokerstars twice in the last two months. Rough working almost full time and trying to maintain A's. Yes, I'm posting at 5:30am because I just finished my assignments for the night. I hate group work btw. Those other ****ers can lick my sack.

You're right on with this - the inside joke amongst teachers - never take a lesson right after you've seen your instructor practicing, his/her eyes are going straight to what they were working on with their own game. Definitely a common problem with younger, less experienced instructors - that and the "recent thoughts" - regurgitating some quick fix they heard on The Golf Channel the night before.

Ha! Yes, I'm a very early riser - the only time I have to return emails, post on website/forums, and knock out the "to do" list for the day. Sounds like you know the feeling!!