What is the most effective way to learn and improve your golf game?
Deep and permanent learning is not accomplished by reading, observing, or listening (a.k.a instruction). Deep and permanent learning is achieved through our own personal experience of doing. Reading these words is not going to transform your golf game, but I hope they will stimulate you to embrace the mindset of learning and improving your golf game through play, fun, exploration and self-discovery……which I refer to throughout these Blogs.
The only source of knowledge is experience.
Albert Einstein
Top instructor, coach and speed golfer, Christopher Smith, in his book I’ve got 99 Swing Thoughts but “Hit the Ball” ain’t one writes about how we learn to perform motor skills instinctively and states, “That is because learning by feel activates different neurons that learning by logic and rote does. I believe that too many of the thoughts we have always used to learn a golf swing actually retard your body’s ability to feel and react to the environment around us. We best learn motor skills by simply doing them. Through the trial and error process and observing and sensing the feedback that comes from the varied results, feel and skill are developed.”
Is golf difficult or is it the way it is taught
that makes it so tough?
Chuck Hogan (Learning Golf)
Christopher Smith gives the example of how a child learns to walk. He states, “You don’t teach a child how to walk by explaining the motions of putting one foot in front of the other; you hold the child up during a few practice runs, and then let them fall a few times as he learns the feel of walking on his own.” (see the April 2022 Instinctive Golf Blog, Learning to Golf is Like Learning to Walk on this site).
Could learning by feel become a new paradigm in learning to play golf well? You are the expert; your subconscious body knows how to perform the motor skills to propel an object (golf ball) with an implement (golf club) in a specific direction, with either power or finesse.
Let the experience be your only expert.
Tama Kieves (Inspired and Unstoppable)
It is my belief and experience that the joy, pleasure and satisfaction that results from self-discovery are much more valuable and effective, and have a greater permanence, than being taught how to do something.
……in the teaching of physical skills,
learning through direct experience
should take priority over learning through
formal instruction in concepts.
W. Timothy Gallwey (The Inner Game of Golf)
Once a movement (such as a golf swing) is learned, the kinesthetic feel is stored permanently in the unconscious part of our brain responsible for our motor skills – often called muscle memory or motor memory. This is the concept embedded in my ‘keep it simple golf’ philosophy to “Recall the feel of pure impact and allow your body/mind to perform the mechanics in your golf swing to reproduce that feel. Trust it!”
You learn the feel of the motion, and then,
by repeating the feel, you create the motion.
John Novosel (Tour Tempo)
Motor skills are learned through experience, trial and error, adaptation and integration – through exploration and self-discovery – the way of a child!
To perform a learned motor skill effectively, you must quiet your conscious mind and establish an intention to activate muscle memory. Your intention is the ‘fuel’ that ignites the ‘engine’ of your motor system stored in your subconscious. The feel in your hands is the conduit that relays the feel of both the clunkers and pure impact to your subconscious neural/muscular system……so you can learn.
Quiet your mind and awaken your body!
What we learn to do, we learn by doing.
Aristotle
Keep it Simple Golf 