To Change or Not To Change?

by Kay McMahon

To change or not to change. . .That is the question?  Usually the first question or maybe the statement I often hear is, “I want to get better, but I don’t want to change anything.” Hmmm. . .doesn’t quite work that way.  Start the New Year new. . .

Three things that I can assure you regarding changing your golf swing:

    One. . .change does not necessarily take a long time;

    Two. . .things won’t get worse;

    Three. . .Better form creates more efficient motion and a more enjoyable game.

With effective, note effective practice, change can take place, does not have to take a long time and can  create more efficient motion for better shots.  Simply hitting golf balls is not effective practice.  It is simply hitting golf balls with no awareness or feedback of the motion and the club.

Often you hear of “muscle memory”,  which is really motor learning and motor learning is a procedure in our memory of how to do things in a step-by-step process to create the movement we want and then perform automatically.

So how do we get to the “automatic” phase?  Learning new movements or changing those movements, as in the golf swing” comes in three main steps:

“I know, I don’t know!” . . .is the phase of wanting to learn or change.

“I know, I know!” . . .is the phase  of awareness or conscious feedback of the motion.

“I don’t know, I know!”  . . . is the automatic.

Therefore, knowing we want to change, the steps to effective practice or change are:

First . . .Understand the concepts.  Understand what the club and your body should be doing.  Clearly understand how the club and your body work to create ball flight.

Second. . .Have step-by-step positions of the club and where your body should be.  Give yourself feedback.  Create awareness by looking.  Create awareness through balance.  Create awareness through feel.

Third. . .Do repetitions of the positions.  Then do slow transitions to the positions, constantly being aware of club and body.  Create the “I know, I know” phase.

Fourth. . .Do more repetitions slowly increasing the speed of the transitions.

Skill progression in each of the steps can be done by first moving your body without the club.   Then introduce the club and repeat the positions. Then introduce the golf ball and repeat the positions with the golf ball on a tee.  Then gradually introduce speed into the transitions until you can get up to your full controllable speed to create the ball flight you desire.

Remember. . .The slower you practice or the slower you go, the faster you can get to the “automatic” stage or “I don’t know that I know!”