Lessons Cost How Much!?
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Right - onto this week’s features in The Mulligan:
Some Ridiculous Golf Lesson Prices
Our 4 best-handpicked equipment deals for the week
Our (short) Weekly Pub Quiz! 🍻
This week’s best bets for the Ryder Cup
Snippets including Butch Harmon’s idea that it’s best to pair up the two that hate each other - Brooks and Bryson, is team chemistry that important in the Ryder Cup? And lastly one fan got lucky at the 2016 Ryder Cup
Before you go check out the hilarious video of ‘Padraig’ with a guest appearance from Phil the Thrill 😆
Free Roll of beautiful drone footage of this week’s Ryder Cup venue, Whistling Straits
But before we jump in, here are some interesting stats from the past week.
Big OWGR Movers
Here are the biggest movers over the last week on the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR)
📈 Max Homa 44—> 31
📈 Maverick McNealy 113 —> 76
📈 Guillermo Mito Pereira 105 —> 82
📈 Scott Vincent 161 —> 123
📈 Kristoffer Broberg 772 —> 237
Last Week’s Winners’ Cheques
💰 Max Homa - $1 260 000 (PGA Tour)
💰 Darren Clarke - $270 000 (Champions Tour)
💰 Jin Young Ko - $210 000 (LPGA Tour)
💰 Scott Vincent - $181 828 (Japan Tour)
💰 Kristoffer Broberg - $175 794 (European Tour)
💰 Celine Boutier - $52 766 (Ladies European Tour)
💰 Alfie Plant - $37 522 (Challenge Tour)
💰 Louis Albertse - $10 748 (Sunshine Tour)
Last Week’s Last Place Cheques
💰 $14 350 - PGA Tour
💰 $2 987 - European Tour
💰 $2 638 - LPGA Tour
💰 $2 081 - Japan Tour
💰 $967 - Ladies European Tour
💰 $801 - Champions Tour (*no cut)
💰 $562 - Challenge Tour
💰 $461 - Sunshine Tour
How Much For A Lesson!?
We’ve all heard it - golf is an expensive game.
Equipment, membership, green fees and everything that goes with it. And then there are lessons.
Sure - most of us will start off with a regular PGA professional who gives us the basic principles and theories to inherit and put into practice. And let’s not take anything away from them, hell I am one of them so go easy on us!
Sometimes us ‘run of the mill’ pros can gain a sense of immense gratitude when we’ve helped just one person learn the game from scratch and have them subsequently fall in love with golf and credit you forever.
And then there are those who choose to go for the cream of the crop in terms of teaching and the cost ain’t a problem. They just want to give themselves the best chance to get as good as they can and as quickly as they can!
After doing a bit of research into the leading coaches of the world, it’s tricky to find any public costings of a private lesson with a namesake such as David Leadbetter, Dave Stockton, Jim McLean, Gary Gilchrist etc.
Here are the prices of a one hour lesson with just one of the associated ‘regular’ coaches within each of the namesake academies:
Dave Stockton Jnr - $450 for 1 hour
Gary Gilchrist - $300 for 1 hour
Jim McLean Academy - $250 for 1 hour
David Leadbetter Academy - $250 for 1 hour
We then came across the Morning Read which elaborates on a host of top coaches and what their fees are. Golf Digest also published their Top 50 teachers in the USA and their fees/votes all quoted. Their Top 5 coaches in the USA are as follows:
Butch Harmon
Mike Adams
Mike Bender
David Leadbetter
Chuck Cook
Another article was from a 2015 Golf.com article backed up the reported fees and private lessons with the big boys themselves can reach up to $20 000 (Dave Pelz) for a day!
Therefore after a bit of digging and taking all the sources into account, the most expensive teachers per hour (treating a full day as 8 hours) are as follows:
Dave Pelz - $20 000 per day ($2 500 per hour) 😳
Hank Haney - $15 000 per day ($1 875 per hour)
Butch Harmon - $1 500 per hour
Chris Como - $10 000 per day ($1 250 per hour)
David Leadbetter - $3 500 for 3 hours ($1 167 per hour)
Sean Foley - $1 000 per hour
George Gankas - $800 per hour
Mitchell Spearman - $1 400 for 2 hours ($700 per hour)
Jim Hardy - $5 000 per day ($625 per hour)
How is that even possible!?? Can there be that much value in paying someone $20k for one day to help improve your game and lower your scores?
Undoubtedly, each of them have their own teaching principles and philosophies. And if you mesh well with them and are able to adapt effectively you will absolutely improve and shave shots off your average score.
Dave Pelz is a short game guru. Works off a ‘clock system’ regarding the swing and will very certainly improve your short game and wedge play like you’ve never seen before. After a reasonable amount of time practicing his method, a single figure player sticking a wedge to within 8 feet each and every shot will become the norm and somewhat expected.
If you’re in the USA, you’ve got the money and want to turn your game around reasonably quickly and effectively then perhaps give one of these a go…otherwise just head to your local PGA Pro and see if there is just a fffffrrraaaaction more bang for your buck! 😆
🔥 This Week’s Hottest Equipment Deals 🔥
GolfBuddy Laser1 Rangefinder less 40% - Check deal here
XXIO X Hybrid less 50% - Check deal here
Cleveland Launcher HB Turbo Fairway less % - Check deal here
Callaway MAVRIK Subzero Fairway less 33% - Check deal here
Pub Quiz
Three questions. Three Answers for each. A bit like The Chase except you get bugger-all in return. Just your trivial pride! (Answers at the bottom)
According to the PGA Tour, roughly how many golf balls are hit into the water each year at 17th hole TPC Sawgrass?
A - 35 000 +-
B - 50 000 +-
C - 100 000 +-
Who holds the record for the lowest number of putts in a 72 hole PGA Tour event?
A - David Frost
B - Mark Calcavecchia
C - Bob Tway
Who is the oldest player to make the cut in a major?
A - Jack Nicklaus
B - Sam Snead
C - Bernhard Langer
Our Best Bets this Week
We’ve kept a record of our best bets to date as well as profit & loss. Check our detailed record here
Our value picks for this week’s Ryder Cup as follows.
Ryder Cup
Jordan Spieth Top Combined Points Scorer @ 10/1 (Paying 4 Places - Place Bet Here)
Collin Morikawa Top Combined Points Scorer @ 16/1 (Paying 4 Places - Place Bet Here)
⚡️ Bet £10 (€10), Get £30 (€30) In Free Bets
✅ Golf Snippets
Butch Harmon reckons it’ll be the best scenario to pair up the two players that don’t gel at all - Bryson and Brooks.
As we mentioned in last week’s Mulligan - is team chemistry a big thing in Ryder Cup? Most of the past captains play it down a touch or otherwise state that they came together quickly and effectively at the start of the tournament. Not sure I believe all of their statements, but anyway. Perhaps McGinley embraced it best though by saying ‘The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.’
This fan (who had balls of steel!) became famous at the 2016 Ryder Cup. The video originally done by Rory McIlroy has had almost 5 million views already!
Wait a Second! 🤣
Check out this hilarious video of ‘Padraig Harrington’ and a glimpse of ‘Phil Mickelson’ 🤣
Answers to Pub Quiz
- C (100 000 +-)
- A (David Frost - 92 putts at 2005 MCI Heritage)
- B (Sam Snead - 67 years)
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Free Roll
Check out pure hole by hole drone footage of Whistling Straits. What a golf course by Pete Dye!