As golfers, we’ve experienced many changes and improvements in golf over the past couple of decades. They include:
- Major improvements in turf quality with closely mown fairways and very smooth putting surfaces.
- Technological strides in golf equipment – new materials like titanium for clubheads and graphite for shafts, both of which allow the clubs to be swung faster and are more forgiving.
- An abundance of golf instruction in the form of DVD’s, books, websites, monthly magazines.
- Hundreds of training devices designed to improve flaws in golfers’ swings.
- The advent of computers that utilize video technology to analyze golfer’s swings.
- Expert advice and commentary provided through the Golf Channel and the weekly network coverage of all of the tours.
But let me tell you what has remained the same of the past two decades; the average golfer’s scores and handicaps. That’s right, The United States Golf Association (USGA) and the National Golf Foundation (NGF) both show statistically that golfers have not improved over the past two decades.
How is this possible with all of the advancements and improvements? The answers are behind Negotiable Golf, my teaching philosophy, and in my new book The Negotiable Golf Swing. The premise is simple. Humans learn physical skills by understanding feedback and through trial and error. This learning occurs in tasks such as walking, jumping, riding a bike, or throwing a ball. For example, imagine a person is learning a basketball free throw shot. He stands on the foul line with a bunch of balls. He throws the first one up and comes up a little short. He throws the next one with more force, but that one is too hard. He continues making adjustments based on the needed force and directional control to make the ball go in. Over time his skills will improve.
Fairly simple, right? So why doesn’t that learning formula work for golfers? It does, but golfers aren’t using it. The fundamental missing link in the formula for golfers is learning through understanding feedback. That feedback is created by the reaction between the golf club and golf ball at impact. The results, termed ball flight, are governed by the law of physics and are nonnegotiable. But instead of thinking about what the club did to produce the ball flight, most golfers think about how their head moved, or that they swung too fast, or they didn’t keep their eye on the ball. And I understand this approach; I did it myself for many years, with similar futile results. It’s not that thinking about parts of our body is wrong. The golf club is swung with our body, but many of the elements within the swing are negotiable. Things such as the grip, stance, alignment, even how the head moves, which many golfers think are laws, but are not; they are negotiable elements.
A golfer must understand how these negotiable elements influence the nonnegotiable laws of ball flight, and then find a compatible arrangement that works for them as an individual. Only through understanding and trial and error, can golfers really improve their games. Without it, their likelihood for success is akin to learning to shoot free throws with a blindfold covering their eyes.
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