7 tips we got from coaches and players at the 2024 PGA Show | How To

One of the great things about the PGA Show is that it’s not just a place where cool and interesting new products. It’s a place where the wider golf world can come together and exchange ideas about how to play better golf.

During a busy week looking around at the latest and greatest golf products soon to hit the marketplace, Golf Digest’s Maddi MacClurg and Luke Kerr-Dineen used the opportunity to compile a few tips from some of the best coaches in the country—and a few Hall-of-Famers—we saw along the way.

If you’re someone that struggles on the green, it’s likely your green reading abilities that are holding you back, not your stroke.

Golf Digest No. 3-ranked teacher Sean Foley explains that most of us have a cognitive skill, called angular acuity which is our ability to see shapes in space. Golfers with a high angular acuity can read greens no problem, but players with low angular acuity will struggle and are left to make a rough guess. But Foley says, when we’re guessing we’re leaving ourselves open to error. Instead of guessing, Foley suggests using a tool like Aimpoint to help you be more calculated and precise with your reads.

When you’re coming down the stretch and in the ballpark of breaking 80, it’s hard not to think ‘don’t mess this up’.

But Golf Digest Top 50 teacher Rick Sessinghaus says that mindset is actually creating a stress response in your body, which will change your rhythm, grip pressure and even your clubface. Instead, he says to turn that threat into a challenge and a great way to do that is to stick to your pre-shot routine and stay in the present moment. Don’t get ahead of yourself and think about the holes or shots you have ahead of you. Instead, take a little more time to visualize the shot at hand or assess your lie and the conditions around you.

It might sound cliché but it’s so important to bring yourself back into the present moment, Sessinghaus says.

If you want to shave two to four strokes off your round, Golf Digest Best in State Jonathan Yarwood says to practice more from greenside bunkers.

There are two types…