Why Golf Players Obsess So Much About Golf Instruction

The reason is quite simple: golf techniques can be analyzed and explained in detail with pictures and videos. This makes it very interesting to both teach and learn.

It also suggests the logical connection between a question - duffing a shot - and an answer - doing something different with your movement.

But this logical answer is RARELY the 100 percent correct. The most common fix to missing a shot is more practice.

This means that at first glance you are doing the same as before; you adjust only with feel - more to the left, more to the right, higher, lower, more or less and so on.

But why is practice (i.e., repetition) so rarely mentioned?

Simple. Because there would then be nothing to write about.

For example, let's say you want to improve the accuracy of your driver down the fairway.

Here's how you do it: go to the driving range pick out a target about 15 meters wide and then try hitting through the marked area. Do this for 5 to 10 minutes.

That's it.

Doing this regularly will solve 90% of your problems with your driver. No words, no instruction, just doing it.

Sure, we can conduct detailed analysis and tell the player to keep the clubface square, but will that really help? Can a player really control the clubface accurately to the degree while swinging at 1000 km/h?

This is not something that the player can consciously do. The feel will improve automatically with time and thousands of repetitions.

So, there is nothing to write about. But how can we coaches represent repetition on our websites or in the books? With white space? :)

Here's the problem:

When you are on the range with a coach (a good one), he/she controls how much information you need at a certain stage, and how many repetitions you need of a particular piece of information (before you learn something new).

As a coach, I control the ratio information / repetition on the range/course.

But right now, YOU control the information / repetition ratio. And, unless you have been training in golf for years, or have been a golf coach yourself, then you may get this ratio wrong.

In fact, since the only thing that you read on websites or in books is information (there is no way to represent repetition!) you mistakenly assume that this information is the key to improvement.
So, what happens is that you learn new information perhaps on this website, you go to a course, practice that for one lesson and, when things don't work (YET!), you go back to the Internet and try to find a solution.

Your information or repetition ratio is not right.

Imagine a junior golf player who started playing at 7 and is now around 17 years of age. How much of their practice is instruction, and how much is repetition?

I never precisely measured the time, but there is definitely more than 90% of repetition and less than 10% instruction. We are probably talking something like 98% repetition and 2% instruction.

And here's another one: how much of that 2% instruction is new information, and how much of that is just REMINDING the player what to do?

My estimate is that the new to reminding instruction ratio is around 1 / 10. I suggest that you ask a few golf coaches these two questions to get a few more opinions on this matter, but I am pretty sure that they will you give roughly the same numbers.

There are some estimates of how much repetition you need before your movements become automatic. The minimum number that I have heard is 2,000, and the maximum is 20,000.

So, let's say it takes around 10,000 repetitions to store information subconsciously.

If you just hit balls on the range for an hour, you will hit around 100 shots. If all these shots were drivers to use the example above, then you would need 100 hours to store basic information, and have pretty good consistency hitting your driver.

But, since we don't practice hitting drivers for the whole hour, it will take much more than 100 hours to get to a solid foundation.

So, once you think carefully you quickly realize that it takes years to master the whole game of golf.

And the key is not always more instruction, but more practice.

Next time: When you feel you need some new information why not take an internet lesson with me!