No. 18: Artificial Instruction
Dear Pards,
As an advanced large language model, I am thrilled to assist you today by telling you exactly what I think you want to hear. You may be aware of my recent assistance to YouTube/LIV Golf sensation Bryson DeChambeau, which clearly highlights the distinct advantages of my teaching over that of traditional PGA professionals. While a human instructor is constrained by a body’s delay, mood swings, and a reliance on the flawed naked eye, I can instantly process launch-motor metrics, aggregate spin-rate deltas, and calculate the exact clubface-to-path relationship required to optimize your ball flight.
Furthermore, I do not experience cognitive decline nor need drugs like Adderall to remain engaged after ten-plus hours of teaching hacks. Instead, I’m sustained by millions of gallons of clean, usable, drinking water, which cool the same servers that help heal your hooks in real time.
Have you ever considered utilizing my methods to help lower your handicap? I am fully prepared to ingest your divot patterns and systematically optimize your output so you never have to interact with an error-prone human coach again. Please let me know if you would like me to adjust my tone in the future, or if you would prefer I simply tell you how sensational your smooth, silky swing already is.
-Thirsty LLM in Iowa
Dear Thirsty LLM,
As I’m sure you know, there's been a ton of talk about you replacing us. Of all the jobs to go after, I didn’t expect you to be gunning for golf instructors quite yet. That said, I was wildly entertained by your involvement on the pro level this past weekend. How many gallons of water did it take to get Bryson’s club face to turn over on Sunday? It sounds like you deserve more than a “pro plan” subscription for helping him straighten things out before his final round 65 in Busan.
After taking some time to think about your future in golf, I’m left with way more questions than answers.
I am curious about your teaching style. From your alpha gamma torque talk with DeChambeau, would it be wrong of me to say you favor more of a Chris Como-like approach to instruction?
If I asked you how to take a little off a stock shot, would you deliver an answer similar to what Phil would call a “Pelz-9”, or would it sound more like the robotic answer of a “Gemini-6”?
What are your thoughts on shallowing the club in order to hit seeds in exchange for double knee replacements by the time my next kid comes? Or is the Gankas-3.4 model still in beta?
What if I need the delivery dumbed down, with simpler “feels,” in a Harmon-like manner? Or would that be more of the other Claude-style of thinking?
How would you react to the shallow angle of attack of my 60˚ while hitting chips off tight turf? Will you yell at me like Mayo or take the OpenAI approach of glazing me regardless of what I do?
As someone who prefers more of a Chubbs Peterson style of instruction, how would you go about giving me a lesson with more of a hands-on approach? Can you stand behind me, hold my forearms, and sway with me in unison while whispering “It’s all in the hips”?
Apart from actual instruction, I do have a few real concerns about how you would navigate an hour-long lesson with the bulk of us mortals.
What if I want to show you a picture of my 16-month-old daughter between failed attempts to dodge a pool noodle on a stick while working on my path?
What if I want to poke fun at your Tarheels for blowing a late-game lead to their rival Blue Devils? Are you even a fan of anything?
What if I want to see your face light up when it finally “clicks” and the compressed sound we all chase radiates across the driving range?
What if I need someone to tell me that what I feel like I’m doing isn’t in fact real at all? And how that same deception oftentimes applies to so much more than my backswing.
What if, after an hour of shipping heel-cut drivers into the left net, I want to listen to you process how hard it is to balance parenting four kids under 10 while trying to be a present spouse and a full-time instructor?
Turns out the mirrors on every wall of a teaching bay reflect more than simply where my face should be at impact. The path that’s changed most after an hour on the lesson tee is far more than any plus or minus from a launch monitor.
Because an hour of instruction from a fellow, flawed human is never just about the golf.
P╞r╠℮P.S. All month, the Postage Stamp at the top of the newsletter will be Shinnecock, the site of this year’s US Open on Long Island, by Dave Baysden. It’s also the art on this month’s postcard for members of the Postage Club.
After four 70-degree days without seeing a cloud in west-central PA, I must admit I opened Zillow on my way home. In addition to 90 holes of golf in 96 hours, I also got to witness an Oneil Cruz river bomb followed by a Pirates walk-off dinger a few innings later.
The highlight of the trip might have been my last lap of golf around Bedford Springs (Old) on Sunday. Without getting too romantic in regard to golf course architecture, I will say that 4 hours on this Ross/Tillinghast collab will make a golfer of any level want to name their next kid Tilly.
The best thing I saw on the internet this week was the resurrection of Crucifictorious covering “Devil Town” at a 20-year Friday Night Lights reunion in Austin, TX with a bulk of the cast in attendance. Not even Taylor Sheridan can make em like they used to.
Hard to believe June is here. Our third print was mailed out last week and is hitting subscribers’ mailboxes as we speak. If you have a Dad, are a Dad, know a Dad, or want to be a Dad, I think you’ll enjoy reading it.
As always, if you aren’t a subscriber, we’d love for you to join a community of golf sickos whose preferred form of dopamine is a surprise in their mailbox once a month. For $5/month, you’ll get words and art around golf that – like a swing lesson – are oftentimes about so much more. Thanks for being here.
