Golfin Online Coaching

I wrote about my experience with Golfin a few months ago, but let me recap the operation for those thay may have missed that post.  Golfin is an online coaching  platform based out of the UK that allows you to receive expert coaching and work at your own pace.  Their model is based on matching golfers with a PGA-qualified coach within the Golfin network that is best suited to help you improve your game. They offer three different packages to address your needs.  See the image below.

Over the past half year, I’ve been working on addressing my wedge yips with Andy Gorman, an accomplished short game instructor.  In Part 1, Andy did a ton of work to point out where my issues were coming from and how I needed to attack them.  From there, all I needed was more time to work both on a grass range and on the course.

More Practice and More Feedback

The good news is that I’m fairly confident to say Andy’s remote internet instruction is leading me out of my wedge yips.  Don’t mistake that for me saying I’m good with my wedges now, but I’m in a place where I feel like I can sort of hit wedges again.  A big help was that the weather has gotten good and golf courses/ranges opened back up from the Coronavirus lockdowns.  This allowed me to start applying my learnings to practice on actual turf, not just a mat.  Throughout this practice, Andy would regularly check in with me asking how things are going and what I might need more help with.

As expected, there were a lot of ups and downs.  Of course, bad habits would sneak in as soon as I’d get comfortable with my improvement.  I would even go so far as to say that I was reverting.  So I sent Andy a couple of videos and he went to work.  The feedback was pretty unsurprising.  In short, I was doing a lot of the bad things Andy initially pointed out to me and wasn’t realizing it.  Andy reinforced what he had previously told me and sent me back off to practice.

Two things came out of that last feedback.  First, I needed to practice more consistently and not believe I have this thing licked.  As fast as the improvement came, bad habits snuck in and I lost it.  Second, I had a big breakthrough and was back on my way to a much better wedge game.

The Breakthrough

The picture above from one of my first Golfin videos that Andy sent me was the answer.  I’ve recently felt like I was applying the major things Andy taught me, but it seemed like I could never string it together.  Then out of nowhere, I focused really hard on “keeping my head in the circle” through the whole shot.  Once I did that, everything started to fall into place.  My weight stayed on my left side allowing me to rotate around that left base.  Which also reminds me, I was starting to make the with swing all arms and shoulders and wasn’t rotating but was swaying.  By focusing on head in the circle, I stopped swaying and started rotating again.

I won’t sit here and tell you that I became a wedge master all of a sudden, but I improved leaps and bounds.  The timing of the club coming through was automatic, contact was crisp, and it was repeatable.  Since this breakthrough, I’ve been able to go out and see the same results with all my wedges on multiple occasions.  I’m also ready to say that some shot versatility is coming back to my game.

Golfin Online Coaching – Part 2 Final Thoughts

Am I done?  Am I fixed?  Did Andy get my wedge game back to the old days?  Of course not, but I’m making incredible progress following my Golfin online coaching.  Before when my game would revert, I would have a hard time finding my way working out of it.  Now, with the videos from Andy, and tips along the way, I have helpful information to reference and compare against as I move forward.  By working with Andy through the Golfin platform, I truly believe I have the necessary tools to keep working and improving on my own.  Andy even told me, “you’ve made great progress and now you’re only going to keep getting better because you’re able to determine your faults and address them on your own.”  This is exactly what I was looking to get out of my Golfin online coaching experience.  Mission accomplished.