Practice: Purpose and Method

Golf

Practice: Purpose and Method


1. Practice. What is practice and what does it do?

By definition, golf is a game of skill. Some may argue that luck plays a role but in the end skill prevails. Some will argue that there are some techniques better than others or that there are techniques that when used will dramatically improve skill. I will discuss precisely that.

I frequently read that people have difficulty striking the ball properly. The same people also look for the correct technique with questions to that effect. "I can't seem to hit the ball well, do you have an idea how to do it properly?" I could explain the correct technique but I think it would be a waste because of the underlying problem: No practice.

Practice is the repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency. Repeated. Systematic. Exercise. Acquiring skill. This prompts me to ask the question: Will I acquire skill without practice? I tried to not practice and my results are unequivocal: I did not acquire skill. I also tried to practice and my results there are just as clear: I acquired skill. I conclude that I must practice if I want to improve.

Technique is, amongst other things, the "skillfulness in the command of fundamentals deriving from practice and familiarity; "practice greatly improves proficiency"" It sounds almost like technique and practice are the same thing. They're not. One leads to the other. Practice leads to technique. Read carefully: "...deriving from practice and familiarity." On the other hand, skill and technique are close in their definitions. Skill is the ability, coming from one's knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well.

When the teacher teaches the student a technique, he teaches what has been learned through practice. An example is that of Ben Hogan, from whom we have learned the "modern fundamentals of the golf swing". Ben Hogan was self taught. For the world to adopt his technique as the "modern fundamentals of golf", he must have practiced like no other. In fact, since he was self taught, he acquired those "modern fundamentals of golf" through practice. He had no other choice. Read again: "...deriving from practice and familiarity."

Can technique be taught to a student and then be executed by the student as skillfully as by the expert? No, not without practice. Skill is acquired through practice. The technique can be taught but without practice, there will be little skill in its execution. Technique is like a template, a plan or a blueprint. It is arrived at through practice first and then it can be transmitted to others as a template, a plan or a blueprint. But without practice, this template is an empty shell.

When learning a new technique, it is important to practice it extensively to become proficient in its execution. If we have never practiced or we practice very little, then the simple repetition of the actions will be most beneficial, perhaps more than the technique itself. How much practice is enough? I think more is better than less but in the end it's up to each to determine how much to practice.

Some prefer to play only and never practice. Some of those want to improve anyway. They think that playing is just as good as practice. It's not. When we play, we never repeat the exact same shot twice in a row, let alone 100 times in a row. In practice, we can repeat the same shot hundreds of times in a row. Remember what practice is, it's a systematic repetition. Playing is not practice and it does not improve skill like practice does. There are games where playing is sufficient to improve because we repeat the same actions over and over but golf is not one of those.


2. What to practice. The purpose of golf.

I have argued in the past about the nature and method of practice. One argument is that we can't just practice, we must practice the right things. The logic is that if we don't practice the right things, we practice the wrong things. That kind of logic only allows for right and wrong, nothing in between. So I disagree with it. If we must practice the right things, we must ask what the right things are. With golf as with any other game, the question to ask is what is the purpose of the game? If it's a game, the purpose of the game is written in the rules. In knowing the purpose, we know what to practice. I invite you to read the rules of golf.


The first rule of the rules of golf is 1-1 (The Game;General):

(direct quote)

"The Game of Golf consists of playing a ball with a club from a teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the rules."


From that rule we deduce that we must send the ball to a target using a club. We have found the purpose of the game and we have found what we must practice. Some argue that it's not sufficient to know the rules, we must swing the club in a specific fashion. The logic here is that if we don't use the "correct" technique, we can't produce the desired result. I argue that it is the desired result that dictates what technique to use, not the reverse. I argue that any technique that produces the desired result is correct by definition. I argue that there is a multitude of different techniques that have been proven successful in the past even when they don't fit the standard mold of Ben Hogan's "modern fundamentals of golf" by a mile or an inch. Or any other mold for that matter. Since golf is a game of skill, success in golf is also determined by skill. Practice improves skill. I deduce that it is the practice of these techniques that has proven them successful, not the techniques themselves.

Others argue that we must practice the right things, otherwise we're going to learn bad habits and those are hard to get rid of. The right thing is by definition, the right thing. It is not, for instance, the wrong thing. I say that whatever produces the desired result is the right thing. Even if it looks like a bad habit. It can't be bad if it does the job.


Allow me to give you some direction. Golf is a game of club and ball. This means that there is an interaction between the club and the ball. Where the balls goes is determined by this interaction. More specifically, it is determined by the fashion and precision of this interaction. We can not, for instance, send the ball anywhere if we don't strike it. We must strike the ball but it is not sufficient to simply strike it. We must strike it properly. We must strike it properly even more so because we must send the ball to a target. It's good to know where we send the ball but it's not as important as how we strike it. Because that's the only time we can control where we send the ball.

Look at players and observe them for a while. Notice the good players look solid on their feet. They look in control of the club at all times. They look like they are focused on the ball even after it's gone. It looks easy for them. They look like they don't give it everything they've got. Now look at the results they produce. More specifically, look at where and how they send the ball. They generally send the ball where they want. In order to do that, they must strike the ball properly. Otherwise they'll just send it anywhere.

Solid on their feet, do the same. In control of the club, do the same. Focused on the ball, do the same. Strike the ball properly, do the same. Send it where they want, do the same. They hold back a bit of power to stay in control, do the same. That's what you should practice.


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3. How to practice.

Some argue that we can't just bang ball after ball for hours and expect to improve. I disagree. We can bang ball after ball for hours if we want to improve banging balls. I know it's just a saying but the point is that we must practice specifically, not just anything. If we want to improve sending a ball to a target using a club, then that's exactly what we must practice: Send a ball to a target using a club. We can't, for instance, send a chair to a sofa using a table. Or dance all night and drink all morning. Or study math for a history test. Well, we can but we would not be practicing what we wanted. Or how we wanted.

What do we practice? How long do we practice? When do we practice? Answering those three questions will determine just about everything we want to know about our next practice session. We know what to practice but perhaps we want to practice specific aspects such as one specific club, for instance. How long depends on each of our ability to learn and improve our skill. I happen to learn and improve when I practice for many hours, for example. When to practice is also up to each to determine. I prefer to dedicate a whole day to practice because of the extent of the practice I do.

An example of a practice session at the range. A couple of hours with the 8 iron, full swing to the same target. Then a couple of hours with the wedge, full swing to the same target. A drill I do to remind me of what's important. A break here and there. 5 hours and about 500 balls. Done for the day. That's what I do. Some time I'll use one club for a whole session. Other times I'll use five or six. Some time I will repeat what I learned during a previous session. Other times I will try out new things or attempt to correct mistakes I did on the course. But most of all, I prefer to use the same club for hours and send ball after ball to the same target for hours. Nothing is better than repeating extensively to increase skill at doing something.

Try out different ways to practice and select the method that gets you the best results skill wise. If, for instance, you practice for too long for your taste, shorten your session to just what you need to improve. Otherwise you may end up becoming sloppy and practicing being sloppy is not entirely constuctive. If, on the other hand, you think you don't practice enough, then lengthen your session until you begin to improve enough for your purpose. Remember, repeating is what makes us improve so if you switch clubs on every shot then you'll become very good at switching clubs but not so much at using them because you would never use the same club for two shots in a row. Effectively, you'd never repeat what you should repeat and that's sending a ball to a target using a club.


4. A final note on practice, skill and technique.

They are all intimately linked and they can't be separated so easily. For instance, we can teach a specific technique that has been developed during previous practice. That would amount to a shortcut on the part of the student. He'd go directly to the effective technique instead of going through all the practice that was done to get to that technique. But we can not teach practice itself. There is no shortcut for repetition, that must be done no matter what. Regardless of the technique that is being taught, it must be practiced for it to have any value. The student must practice to become skilled at executing the technique. Think of the template and the empty shell.


Practice is the repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency.

Skill is the ability, coming from one's knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well.

Technique is, amongst other things, the skillfulness in the command of fundamentals deriving from practice and familiarity.


The next time you read about this or that technique to fix your slice, be aware that if you don't practice, the technique is useless.


5. Learning something new and its effects on our perception.

When we learn something new, we change our perception. We build new pathways in our brains that light up neurones like a christmas tree. Learning something new does other things such as it excites the pleasure centers. It is fun to learn. We become more aware when we learn. Our mental abilities temporarily become more active. We remember things we had forgotten. In short, we sort of wake up from the slumber of boredom. If we don't understand all that, we may come to false conclusions about what we see and feel. We may become illusioned about our performance. We would hit a good one and think to ourselves that we can do it again. So we try and try again driven by that belief. We try to remember the feeling we got from that good shot after we tried that new thing we read about. We associate the new technique with that single good shot we did. We associate new with good. New effectively becomes better than old. Out with the old, in with the new.

Contrast this with the deep boredom of repeating the same thing for hours. We now understand how we prefer to believe that new is better. Unfortunately, new gets old quick. We must look for something new again. We continuously look for this new thing that will wake us up again. This new thing that will reinforce our belief that new is better. After all, new gave us pleasure in the past so it must be good. It must always be better. We are hooked on tips of the week. It now becomes irrelevant to become good at playing golf, all that matters is the fix. We are convinced of the benefit of new because of that single good shot we hit way back when and because of the relationship between new and pleasure. And because we believe.

We want our fix.

If that's what you want then I'm sorry to disappoint you. I have no fix for you anywhere in this text. Practice is boring. Go home.


Martin Levac

Great mind-dump, Martin.

A good read (albeit long)

Agreed that there are many ways of swinging a club that work. There are also many that don't work. If the way you swing the club doesn't work, then repeating it hundreds or thousands of times won't result in the acquisition of skill.

If your swing doesn't work you must change it. To do that you must find out what you're doing that doesn't work, and you must find out what does work. You can do that by trial and error or in some other way. In any case, what you need is knowledge. Without knowledge practice is at best inefficient and at worst futile. For me the best way to get knowledge about what I'm doing that doesn't work is a video camera, but others will prefer the services of an instructor. Others will use both.

If your swing is fundamentally sound to begin with, then the purpose of practice is to make it better: more consistent, more accurate, etc. If it's not sound then practice must be supplemented by knowledge.

__________________
Todd
Philadelphia, PA
USA

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller

Would you agree that "fundamentally sound" is the same as "technically correct"? Read the bit I wrote about technique. I explain that technique is derived from practice and familiarity. To sum it up, any technique can't be correct to begin with, it must be practiced to get up to that level. I explain that it is the practice of the technique that makes it successful, not the technique itself.

If my swing doesn't work, I must practice it. Not simply change it. Read the bit I wrote about learning new things and its effects on our perception. I explain how it can become addictive to keep learning new things instead of practicing the old. A beginner can't just be good when he begins, he must acquire skill and experience through practice. It is this practice that makes the swing work, not the technical correctness. The great majority of people who say their swing don't work are beginners who just need more practice.

Repetition is what improves skill. If I repeat the "wrong things" over and over, I will acquire skill. Only the skills I will acquire won't be where I need them most. I explain the specificity of practice. If one wants to become good at sending a ball to a target using a club, then one must practice specifically that and nothing else.

What is missing in my original text is the importance of study in all this. How when combined with practice, it allows us to improve our skill further than just practice alone. I study in between practice session to learn more about what I practiced. On the next practice session, I have something to improve or fix or one less thing to worry about.

hi
great post, i tend to think of technique more as a system and you have to get all the parts of that system to work together to get a result and the best way to to get the parts to work together is to practice all the parts of the system till there ingrained and then use the system you now have as your base to learn more and add more parts to your system like drawing and fading drives or hitting the ball high or low, so many part you then can add but all need to be practiced with purpose to build up a bigger system of techniques.
bill

I disagree. Technique can be correct but executed inconsistently. Practice will fix that. But it can also be incorrect and practice won't fix that.

You may need to change it *and* practice it. But I agree that a point is reached where what's needed isn't some "new thing." It may be a matter of paying more attention to details already known and actually doing them.

I don't know about majority, but I believe plenty are people doing things that just don't work, no matter how many times repeated.

Another hobby that requires TONS of practice is sleight of hand magic. But you must understand exactly what to practice or you will simply never be able to do it right.

Not necessarily. As in music, you may benefit from practicing something other than the final action you want to master. Musicians don't practice scales because they want to perform scales. Some skills are conducive to others, and that's why we practice drills and not just strokes.
Indeed. Study is one of the ways of getting knowledge. If all you know if you want to send a ball to a target using a club, you don't know enough.

__________________
Todd
Philadelphia, PA
USA

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller

Martin,

You are obviously sold on your theory regarding practice, stability, solid contact and looking at the ball. You have posted this in detail may times now, there is no problem with that and you are quite free to state your opinions .

What is tiring is that you are never prepared to see, consider or accept another view. Many have posted contrary theories on what is a most subjective matter and you will always dismiss them out of hand with your very long repetitive restatements.

I would respectively suggest that you either create an article on your practice theory and post it in the Article area on this site, then it is there once and will allow a single reference. Or, you adopt a more flexible approach to your discussions.

Best Regards
Brian.

__________________
Best Regards
Brian

________________________________
Funny o'l game!

Todd, the technique must produce the desired result and in accordance with the rules, what else must the technique comply with to be correct in your eyes?

Wooooooooooooooooooooosssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! !!!

It must comply with a sound?!? Please explain. Your argument is not clear.

I make a distinction between technique and its execution. Your technique may be basically sound but your execution of it is erratic. Practice (with appropriate feedback) can help with that. If your technique is unsound, practicing it won't get better results.

Sound technique is any method which, if executed within some range of tolerances, produces the desired results. Unsound technique doesn't. I don't say that there's only one sound technique for striking golf balls. But there are lots of unsound techniques.

Before you practice it's a good idea to know if your technique is sound, or you can waste a lot of time, and actually get worse. I say this as someone who has done exactly that. Have you ever spent a few hours at the practice range, trying to hit balls to a target, finding that you can't do it more than one time in ten, no matter how many balls you hit? I have. The solution is not more practice. It's diagnosis of the problem first: knowledge.

Practice without knowledge is blind.

Your ideas about practice exclude drills that are not rehearsals of the actual technique executed on the course. I believe this is as much a mistake in golf as it would be in music, or just about anything else. A drill isolates a part of a technique for improvement, and it has a place, which is why such drills are used in golf, music, martial arts, etc.

__________________
Todd
Philadelphia, PA
USA

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller

Woosh was the sound that was heard as Brian W's comments went right over your head.

Ah, so you add the requirement that it must be executed within a range of tolerances. And how do we determine if this execution is within this range of tolerance? Do we simply look at the person executing the technique or is there some other form of quality control?

We could look at the ball flight Martin, that's a fair test of tolerances.

Come on now just say something like "Fair point" or "yes, that may work" Go on try it, pretty please!