Jonathan Yarwood has noticed a disturbing pattern.
Yarwood is a GOLF Top 100 teacher at Alpine Country Club in northern New Jersey, and he has an impressive resume. Throughout his distinguished career, he has taught several major winners, USGA champions and high-level amateurs. These days, however, he spends most of his time in a teaching studio with recreational golfers. And lately, a curious theme has emerged.
“A new phenomenon,” says Yarwood. “About 90 percent of amateur players now say, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I’ve consumed so much golf content that I’m completely confused.’
“It’s an epidemic.”
In some ways this should come as no surprise. Scrolling on social media may have become a standard pastime the standard pastime. Increasingly, our spare moments are filled instinctively by reaching for our phones and letting the algorithm take the wheel as we mindlessly consume content specifically tailored to our interests.
For me (and perhaps for you) that means golf. Particularly swing tips and tricks.
But lately I can’t help but feel that that corner of the internet feels wildly oversaturated. Any golf swing sucker can open their go-to app and see what I mean.
Recover your backswing in 40 seconds
The secret to a square clubface every time
The best swing tip you’ll ever hear
If you scroll a little longer, you might even see two consecutive videos with conflicting advice (in fairness, the content of written instructions is sometimes guilty of the same thing), each with hundreds of thousands of views.
It’s easy to understand the appeal of this type of content. The videos are short and digestible. They are simple, polished and promise fast results. Best of all, the ‘expert’ tips are free. And yes, there is a chance that they will help you.
Golf is a game that can never be perfected, but that hasn’t stopped generations of players from striving to improve. Nor should it! There’s nothing like flushing an iron, setting a personal best or carding a birdie. The game is endlessly addictive and has a way of occupying the mind like no other.
So when a video on social media promises to help in that endeavor, it acts as catnip to the golfing soul. But when every video offers a solution, a more important question arises: How do you know if scrolling is helping your game… or quietly hurting it?
A new era of golf instruction
Like so many other things in the modern age, golf instruction has evolved along with technology.
There used to be limited options when it came to finding quality golf tips. You could go to a PGA professional at a local club who, if you were lucky, had a proven track record of developing successful students. Or you can rely on the written word, dipping your toe into golf instructional classics like Ben Hogan’s ‘Five Lessons’ or Harvey Penick’s ‘Little Red Book’, or the latest issue of GOLF Magazine.
But as society becomes increasingly tethered to phones and screens, you’re more likely to find your instructions through a well-packaged tip on social media.
If you want a slice fix today, you can find hundreds of options in seconds, all promising to get you on the right path. The same goes for a stubborn hook, the chipping yips or a lack of power. Whatever’s ailing your game, you’re just a quick Google search (or a few scrolls) away from a promised fix.
On the surface, this shift seems overwhelmingly positive. Golf lessons have long been expensive, and the Internet has significantly lowered that barrier to entry. But accessibility does not necessarily mean quality.
“I actually think golfers are better trained now,” says Tony Ruggiero, a GOLF Top 100 teacher who splits time between Alabama and Florida. “They understand the terminology better and look at instructions more than ever. But they are no better at understanding what is actually causing their swing problems. They chase effects instead of causes, and then they go down rabbit holes.”
There are several incentives at work here. Social media rewards simple explanations and promises quick results – but content creators don’t have much pressure to actually deliver results to one individual. Effective coaching requires good diagnosis and context, and focuses on the most important part: results. Without these elements, even well-intentioned advice can leave golfers looking for answers in the wrong places.
More harm than good?
Yarwood, who heads south in the winter to teach, says his concerns about the saturation of swing thoughts are confirmed every time a perplexed player walks through his door. “You get coaches who can theorize and look great online,” he says. “But just like social media in general, you only see the highlights.”
Ruggiero has noticed a similar pattern during his days on the teaching tee at Montgomery Country Club in Alabama and Old Palm Golf Club in South Florida.
“It’s changed a lot,” Ruggiero said. “If you had asked me that three, four, five years ago, I would have said, ‘Yes, I get it sometimes.’ But now it’s almost every lesson.”
Therein lies one of the biggest problems with golf instruction via social media: the lack of personalization. There is no guarantee that the tip presented is the tip You actually necessary.
Take the over-the-top swing for example. It’s one of the most common ailments among recreational golfers — and, not coincidentally, one of the most popular “fixes” offered by coaches on social media. But here’s the catch: not every over-the-top move is caused by the same underlying flaw.
For example, the cause of an over-the-top swing is often an open clubface, caused by a poor grip. But if that’s the case and you start making changes to move more from the inside out, you’ll be in for even worse. What you should really be doing is improving your grip and clubface, which will in turn naturally improve your club path and allow you to swing more from the inside.
Most golfers don’t realize that – or are at least willing to roll the dice with whatever video they see next promises to solve the problem they’re dealing with. Unfortunately, the prescribed solution often has little to do with the error.
“If you don’t diagnose the cause, you can make things worse,” Ruggiero said. “There are many different causes for something like an over-the-top swing. The information may be correct, but it is not always helpful for your problem.”
It’s a vicious circle. One new feeling makes things worse, so the golfer looks for another solution. That solution can help temporarily, but can also lead to more problems, so they look for another solution. It doesn’t take long before the brain is overloaded with information and the swing is in a pretzel.
“It’s like going into a Walgreens,” Ruggiero said. ‘Everything in there can help you – as it’s really treating what’s wrong with you. But if you take something from every aisle, you’ll end up in the hospital. That’s what golfers do. They take a little bit of everything, even though most of it has nothing to do with their real problem.”
Don’t confuse popularity with origins
One of the more subtle dangers of online golf instruction is that visibility is often confused with expertise. In other words, social media is a different skill set than golf coaching. Algorithms reward engagement, but they don’t always (or ever?) verify that the information comes from a trusted source. As a result, some of the most popular swing tips online come from instructors with little history of achieving measurable results with real students.
“Watching these videos can be harmful because many people identify themselves as experts when in reality they are not,” says Yarwood. “If you’re going to search online, you need to look for people with real history – people who can actually show results, not staged content, not bravado.”
In traditional coaching environments, credibility is built over time. A coach’s reputation is tied to the players he has developed, the success of those players and the improvements he makes over time. Online, that responsibility largely disappears. A swing tip can generate millions of views without the coach ever developing a quality player or even lowering his handicap.
That connection can be frustrating for teaching professionals, and especially dangerous for recreational golfers. An instructor who “looks the part” and speaks with authority can be mistaken for an expert, even if his real-world resume is thin.
That doesn’t mean that all online instruction should be dismissed. Far from it, in fact. Many of the most talented coaches in the world – those who teach major champions and elite amateurs – regularly share thoughtful, high-quality content digitally. You can even find excellent instructions directly from great champions, such as Bryson DeChambeau and Padraig Harrington.
But it is important that consumers go through a vetting process. Before adopting a swing tip, golfers should ask a few simple questions: Does this coach have a history of developing players? Have their students succeeded in competitive golf? They explain WHO is a tip for, instead of claiming that it is a solution for everyone? Answers to these questions are much more important than the number of followers or opinions.
“When you’re looking for help, you have to ask, ‘Who is this person? What is their track record?'” Ruggiero says. “It’s no different than medical advice. You can get it online from someone who isn’t a doctor, but you don’t really know.”
Ultimately, the platform is not the problem. The problem is that reach is confused with results – and popularity is confused with pedigree.
The right way to improve online
Social media itself is not the problem. This also applies to the quest to learn through online content.
For golfers, social platforms have lowered the barrier to entry and provided access to some of the brightest minds in the sport. For instructors, these platforms provide a way to share ideas, demonstrate expertise, and reach players who may never step foot on their lesson tee. Much of that content is thoughtful, credible, and genuinely useful.
The key, however, is to use these tools responsibly. That means resisting the urge to mindlessly scroll from tip to tip, absorbing each new idea as if it were equally correct and equally applicable to the one before it. Improvement does not come from collecting swing thoughts. It comes from understanding what advice applies to your game.
“Instruction should not be entertainment,” says Yarwood. “Watch the PGA Tour if you want entertainment. Instruction isn’t like Spotify. Otherwise you’ll end up with too many swing thoughts, like putting your music library on shuffle.”
In a game where progress is based on dedication, the smartest golfers are not the ones who chase every new solution. They’re the ones who know which voices to trust – and when to stop scrolling and start practicing.
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