Why Golf Swing Advice Doesn't Work for Everyone

Turn more. 

Stay centred.

Get shallow.

Use the ground.

Release the club.

Hold the angle.

Spend enough time watching golf content online and eventually you'll hear almost every possible piece of swing advice.

The confusing part is that much of it can work.

You can watch one golfer make a huge improvement by turning more, while another golfer starts hitting it worse trying to do exactly the same thing.

That doesn't necessarily make the advice good or bad.

The more important question is whether the advice matches the golfer.

There isn't one correct way to swing a golf club

Look at the best golfers in the world and you'll find enormous variation in how they move.

Backswing lengths vary.

Clubface positions vary.

Pivot patterns vary.

Release patterns vary.

Players create speed differently.

Their bodies aren't identical either.

They have different proportions, different ranges of motion, different physical capabilities and different movement histories.

Yet golfers are often coached as though there is one ideal movement they should all be working towards.

We think that creates a problem.

If golfers aren't built the same, we shouldn't automatically expect them to solve the golf swing in exactly the same way.

Your body influences the swing available to you

Your physical capabilities influence how you can organise movement.

Imagine two golfers being told to make a bigger turn.

One golfer has plenty of available rotation and can create that movement relatively easily.

The other has significantly less available rotation.

They can still attempt to follow the instruction.

But their body has to find a way of producing the movement they've been asked to make.

They might extend differently.

Their pelvis might move differently.

Their arms might travel further.

Their pressure movement might change.

The instruction hasn't changed.

The golfer has.

This doesn't mean physical limitations determine exactly how somebody must swing.

It means physical capability is useful information when deciding which movement solutions make sense for that golfer.

At Macro Golf, this is one reason we investigate the golfer before deciding what needs changing.

Your existing movement patterns matter too

Physical capability is only part of the picture.

Golfers arrive with movement histories.

Someone who played hockey for twenty years may organise rotation differently from somebody who grew up playing tennis.

A golfer who has spent ten years trying to hold the clubface open has a different movement history from somebody who naturally releases the club aggressively.

Some golfers naturally create lots of speed.

Some naturally control the clubface well.

Some have access to a wide variety of movement solutions.

Others repeatedly return to a much smaller number of patterns.

These characteristics influence what happens when you introduce a new swing thought or technical change.

You're never adding an instruction to a blank canvas.

You're adding it to an existing golfer.

We call this your Blueprint

At Macro Golf, we use the term Blueprint to describe the unique set of characteristics that determine how a golfer naturally solves movement problems, which movement solutions are most available to them, and how they are most likely to perform under different conditions.

Your Blueprint doesn't give us one perfect golf swing.

It gives us information.

It helps us understand why certain movements may appear.

It helps us investigate why one idea produces an immediate improvement while another feels almost impossible.

And it helps us make better decisions about what we should actually be trying to change.

You can read more about the thinking behind this in our Macro Golf philosophy.

Good advice can still be the wrong advice

This is where golf instruction becomes difficult.

Take a piece of advice like:

“Stay more centred.”

There will be golfers for whom that is exactly what they need.

There will also be golfers whose movement becomes significantly worse when they try to do it.

The same is true of:

“Turn more.”

“Get more open.”

“Shallow the club.”

“Use your body more.”

“Release your hands.”

None of those statements tells us whether the advice is appropriate for the golfer standing in front of us.

That's why collecting more information about the golf swing isn't necessarily the same as understanding your own golf.

You can know hundreds of drills and still have no idea which one you should actually be doing.

This is why swing thoughts can suddenly stop working

Many golfers will recognise this cycle.

You find a swing thought.

It works brilliantly.

Strike improves. Ball flight improves. The swing feels easier.

You think you've finally found it.

Then a week later it stops working.

So you search for another thought.

That works for a while.

Then that disappears too.

There are several reasons this can happen, but one is that swing thoughts aren't instructions operating independently of everything else.

They change your intention.

And intention can change how your body organises movement.

A particular thought might temporarily help you access a movement solution that works well for you.

Another might interfere with something you already do effectively.

This is why we place so much importance on the relationship between the mind and movement.

The body can only solve the problems the mind gives it.

The intention matters because it changes the problem.

A technically better-looking swing isn't always better golf

This is another trap.

A golf swing can become more aesthetically conventional on video without producing better golf.

A position might look closer to a tour player's.

The club might appear more “on plane”.

The movement might satisfy a technical model.

But what happened to the ball flight?

What happened to strike?

What happened to speed?

Can the golfer reproduce it?

Can they access it on the course?

Does the movement actually fit the rest of the golfer?

Technical development absolutely matters. It forms part of what we describe as your Current Ability.

But the purpose of technical development is to improve golf performance, not simply to make a swing look more conventional.

We explore the distinction between the ability a golfer possesses and the performance they produce in our Golf Performance: Ability Is Not the Same as Performance article.

This doesn't mean every swing is fine

Individualising golf coaching doesn't mean accepting everything a golfer currently does.

Sometimes a movement genuinely limits performance.

A golfer might struggle to control the clubface.

They might have poor low-point control.

Their strike pattern might create too much variability.

Their movement might make producing their desired ball flight unnecessarily difficult.

There may be significant opportunities to increase their physical capability.

Those things deserve development.

The difference is how we arrive at the solution.

We want to understand why the pattern exists, what it's doing for the golfer and what else influences it before deciding what should replace it.

That's a very different process from spotting a position that looks unusual and immediately trying to remove it.

Your ball flight is part of the investigation

The golf swing doesn't exist in isolation.

We're ultimately using it to create a golf shot.

So your ball flight and shot pattern provide important evidence.

What is your normal shape?

Where does the ball start?

How does it curve?

Where are your misses?

How predictable are they?

What happens to strike?

What changes between your good and poor shots?

A movement that looks unusual but produces predictable, functional golf may require a very different intervention from a movement associated with a destructive two-way miss.

We need context.

The swing gives us evidence.

The ball gives us evidence.

Your body gives us evidence.

Your performance gives us evidence.

The job of coaching is to put those pieces together.

Stop asking whether a swing tip is correct

There's a better question.

When you see a drill online or receive a piece of advice, don't immediately ask:

“Is this correct?”

Ask:

“What problem is this trying to solve?”

Then:

“Is that actually my problem?”

And finally:

“Does this solution make sense for me?”

Those questions immediately change how you consume golf instruction.

You stop collecting random solutions.

You start investigating your own golf.

And that's where personalised coaching becomes valuable.

The objective isn't to find every possible way of swinging a golf club.

It's to understand which movement solutions help you produce your best golf more often.

Find Your Match-Up

Your golf swing is part of a much bigger system.

Your physical capabilities matter.

Your movement tendencies matter.

Your intentions matter.

Your ball flight matters.

And the way those things interact is individual to you.

That's why we believe better golf starts with finding the right match-ups.

Our free Match-Up Audit looks at four areas of your golf:

Technical Blueprint.
Mind-Body Connection.
Physical Capability.
Ball Flight / Shot Pattern.

It gives you a starting point for understanding your own golf and identifying where your biggest opportunities may be.

Take the Free Match-Up Audit →