You have probably found yourself in a situation on the golf course when a playing partner has offered you some advice. Whatever the advice is, hearing someone you play with start telling you what you are doing wrong can be both very annoying and have a negative rather than positive impact on your game.
However, chances are you have done the same to someone else during a round without really realising it. For most people, wanting to try and help someone else is natural but on the golf course, offering swing tips to another player out of the blue can have the opposite effect.
So, what is the best way to go out about offering advice?
The problem with offering advice to a player during a round of golf is you do not always know their background story. For example, they could be carrying an injury of some sort but did not want to seem to be making an excuse if they were playing poorly so decided not to mention it to you.
If you then begin to tell them what they are doing wrong in this situation, it could anger them as they did not want to share the information about their injury.
The second issue when offering advice to someone during a round of golf is that we are not professional players and most of us are unlikely to have any teaching experience. Basically, we are not qualified to give sound advice to another player.
What we say could make things worse and if their overall play starts going further downhill, there is a chance they will start pointing the finger at you.
That’s not to say some simple advice should never be offered but the key is to stay away from anything complex, such as swing technique and only offer advice on something which is easier to fix.
In addition, the way in which you offer the advice is also very important. Instead of just coming out with it, why not ask politely if they are open to receiving some input because you think you may have noticed something beneficial?
Straight away you have mentioned the word ‘beneficial’ and that immediately sounds positive rather than concentrating on the negative. It will get the person thinking you are going to say something which is going to be good for them rather than just blurting out a something about a ‘problem’ they are having.
If you ask in a positive manner, there is a good chance they will say yes and even if the tip you offer turns out not to be very useful, you have gone about saying it correctly.
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