PERFORMANCE SECRET #4:
Practicing for Success

By James Standhardt
GolfTEC Coach, PGA Member
Naperville, IL

Practicing the right way will accelerate your improvement

I'm often asked how long someone has to practice a certain change before we can officially consider it "changed." I've discovered that the best answer is that it completely depends on how you practice. Many studies have concluded that in order to change a learned motion (like those in a golf swing), anywhere from eight to ten thousand correct repetitions are necessary. While that number may sound daunting, it can be lowered significantly by over-correction, or exaggerating a desired motion.

For example, if you and your Coach are working on shortening your top position to gain more consistency with your contact and shot dispersion, you may find that what you feel often doesn't coincide with how long your swing actually is. In this instance, it is effective to challenge yourself to make swings that are well short of the desired position. Most likely, you'll find that if you're able to develop a feel for where that shorter point is, making the change becomes much easier and requires less time.

This brings us to the key point of where you practice. I recommend that all my students allocate a considerable amount of their practice time to in-bay practice for most changes. For some, the absence of ball flight can be a tough hurdle to get over. However, once you begin to let go of the result and start to focus more on the process, you tend to discover that your swing not only changes more quickly, but it often does so with less frustration! Very few of us are able to hit the necessary number of poor shots on the range without reverting back to what is comfortable (i.e. incorrect) in order to see better short-term results. Hitting in a controlled environment—with cameras that can pick up every motion in your swing and allow you to play them back in slow motion—allows you to focus on the process and helps you make the connection between what you feel and what you do.

In the end, your pace of improvement relies on many factors: how much time you devote to making a change, how you attempt to make that change and where you attempt to make that change are just a few. It only makes sense to stack the odds in your favor and do it in an environment that caters to utilizing your time in the most effective manner possible, doesn't it? As we enter the off-season in many regions, the next three to four months offer the opportunity to make effective, long-term swing changes that will stay with you for years to come. I suggest working with your Coach to develop an off-season practice regimen (if you don't already have one) and sticking to it in the coming months. When next season starts, you'll be glad you did.