Well it is the Golf Camp Season! There is a golf camp out there for every kid of any age. They will be learning with their friends in a fun environment. Kids learn golf for a number of days straight - 4 to 8 hours a day. They are going to learn so much and greatly improve their games, right? WRONG!

It is my experience that golf camps are almost always better for the in$tructor$ than the students. After all, camps charge hundreds to thousands of dollars to give large group lessons.  But do not get me wrong, the content of the instruction is normally very good. Yet we need to remember that the students are kids. As a general rule they do not have the attention span to effectively learn from marathon lessons over such condensed periods of time. This is even more true for kids under 13!

A camp at $200 for four days may sound like a deal. But the individual attention each child actually receives will depend on the size of the group.

On the other hand, I have seen kids sent off to remote high end camps sometimes half way across the country. This may be a good life experience, but they always return with a new  'magic method' or 'magic move.' But after a short time the magic starts to fade and the kid quickly realizes their camp instructors are no longer available. Now what does the kid do? Normally they end up going back to their local instructor who attempts to undo what the kid learned at camp! There is something to be said about working with the same instructor as multiple instructors teaching multiple methods only confuses the student.

And remember that learning golf is similar to eating an elephant; one must take small bites over a long period of time. Only in golf, one needs to practice between each bite or meal! So, be very careful and do your homework before sending your kid to golf camp.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Unless the camp is extraordinary, even a $200 camp would be better spent sending the kid to individual or small group lessons over a 5 to 10 week period . . .from one instructor . . . with lots of practice between each lesson!

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So are golf camps good or bad? Share your experience below in the comments.