You pay good money for golf instruction from a reputable coach. But are you learning the right lessons?

If you take your sport seriously you will probably pay for lessons with a professional coach. They will observe your technique, see where you are making mistakes and provide the coaching to improve your game. Instruction from your coach may take the form of verbal guidance, using their hands or the use of visualization to make the necessary changes to your technique.

However, there is one big factor to overcome that may prevent you getting the full benefit from your golf instruction sessions. What is this factor? Its called habit and it influences far more than you think.

Habit and performance

How you perform your golfing techniques is determined by habit. Before you tee off you will probably prepare yourself in a way that feels right. Where you place your feet, place your grip and even how you breathe will be based on how you have done it before. So why is there such a wide variation in the result? Why does it fly straight down the fairway one moment and veer way off the next hole? Even though you have prepared in your usual way there will be other unknown factors that will determine the outcome of your swing. Until these factors are brought to a conscious level you will get limited results from your golf lessons.

To appreciate just how influential your habits are, try folding your arms, note which way you have folded them and then try and fold them the opposite way. How does it feel? A little strange? There is nothing wrong with folding your arms this way but it doesnt feel right because it is not your habit. Would you choose to hold your club and stand in a way that feels wrong? Probably not, but this keeps you limited to performing within your comfortable habits which may or may not be working for you! Regardless of sport, every sports person plays their game in a way that feels right. But of course, what feels right is only your habit. How you put your golf coaching into practice will be determined by what feels right, or remember it's only your habit which could be good or not. How would you know? Habit gets in the way of progress and may prevent you from improving elements of your game. Let's look at an example.

The golfer, his confidence and performance

A golfer starts to pull the ball off the tee whereas previously the ball went straight down the fairway. His swing was always free of tension because he had previously stayed poised to play the stroke. Once he started to compete at a more senior level stress became a factor resulting in a small but unperceivable amount of tension in his neck and shoulders. He doesnt notice this because he is concentrating on getting the ball toward the green. Gradually this tension becomes part of his technique because he has conditioned himself to do it and he will not start his swing until this tension is present because he now associates this feeling with preparation.

So now he will unconsciously prepare for his stroke by tightening the neck and shoulders in anticipation of the effort required. The first indication he has of the problem is the obvious outcome is the ball landing in the rough and not the feeling of tension, because this is now an automatic habit it is ignored. He now knows something is wrong and will try to alter his swing. But his attempts to correct the problem start too far down the chain by focusing on the execution of the act and not his concept of it. His focus on the swing adds more tension to his habit for preparation and will start to pull the ball further. Other alterations made to his shot to make the ball go straight will further complicate the issue because they are now built on top of his suspect preparation habits taking him further away from his natural style. He will do what feels right but remember the arm-folding experiment.

The more he tries to be right the more he will rely on his comfortable habit of getting set for the shot. Confidence will obviously take a dive because he can no longer trust his judgement or his ability to make adjustments. If he is oblivious to these actions in his technique he will not be able to change them.

Things will get worse because he seeks the help of a coach for golf instruction who will see the build up of unnecessary tension and instruct him not to do it. Our golfers confidence will be further dented when what he is told not to do something that feels so right. When he tries to carry out what he has been told to do it will feel wrong (the opposite arm-fold) and he will start to believe he doesnt know anything about golf. The initial problem started because he was not in The Zone, an ultimate state of awareness where performances become almost flawless. Once he started to focus on an action that was yet to happen - the club making contact with the ball, he was no longer in the moment. He should have been absorbed in the act of his stance so he would be poised before he starts to raise his club and turn his upper body. This way he would have instantly recognised the tension and could have let it go before starting the swing.

Sports people devise all sorts of methods to stay in the moment, for example marksmen often observe their breathing to help them focus. Yet once we start to concentrate on the desired outcome ahead of where we currently are, i.e., the seconds on the clock, the muscles we are working out or the ball going down the hole, we are taken out of the moment and inappropriate actions may begin to creep in until they become part of the technique.

How to make the most of your golf coaching

So how does our golfer change his technique? He knows something is wrong but has not as yet discovered why? He has an idea that it is something he has started to do prior to the shot because he had previously been able to play this shot with few difficulties. His golf coach has highlighted the tension build up in his neck and shoulders yet he lacks the self-awareness and observational skills to determine what is causing this. Besides he cannot feel this for himself because it is a habit and part of his technique therefore is unable to stop doing it (how can you stop doing something you dont know you are doing?) The tension in his shoulders has become part of his preparation for the swing, as soon as he thinks about playing he applies this tension and wont start the swing phase until this is present. This feeling is his template or foundation for the technique so he wont be aware of the tension because it is there before he starts to observe his preparation. He needs to change his concept and not the end product, his technique.

So first he has to learn to stop to rediscover his natural poise and reset his template. He has to learn to stop and lower the level of activity in his nervous system to an appropriate minimum for each action. If he can get himself into the moment and focus on his breathing, muscle tension and position before he has even picked up his club, he will be able to recognise when he starts to build up tension in his shoulders. Now he has a chance to prevent this. By maintaining a stillness he has learnt from going back to the basics of movement and awareness he can allow himself to play the shot that has been there all along. With his new understanding of his body and how his thinking controls his actions his confidence will grow as he starts to minimize the discrepancy between his intent and his outcome skill.

Using your intellect to identify, assess and overcome a problem will give your confidence a huge boost. It is also a process to apply to any aspect of your game or even your life. It will also allow you to get the most out of your mind and body to take your golf to the next level.