In for the Long Haul

Note: I totally forgot about last week’s post. Getting back on track now that summer vacation for my younger students is over.

Mid length Goal: 

I won a professional golf tournament by August 3, 2013

Monthly goal: 

I complete my morning training

Weekly goals: 

 
I complete 45 minutes of practice per day by Aug 7, 2013

Weekly Goals Completed – 1/1

Time spent on full swing – 4 hours

Time spent on shots inside 100 yards – 2 hours

Time spent on putting – 1 hours

Rounds played this week, where, score, fairways/greens/putts 



None

Time spent in the gym – 2 hours + stretching

Workouts I did –

Thursday –

Friday – 
Full-body strength

Saturday –

Sunday –

Monday –

Tuesday –

Wednesday – Lower-body strength

Thoughts on the week – Summer is starting to come to a close and my work load is easing off. So my goals for August will be more aggressive! I really need to push myself. I have had a decent amount of range time over the summer but virtually no course time. As a result my swing has improved and technically is getting stronger. That’s great, but with no course time I have struggled to bring this swing to the course. Some days I have felt confident and played a few holes and made birdie after birdie. Other days….not so much!

What you can learn from my experience? 



Look at the big picture! Be patient!

If you have ever taken a golf lesson, your coach will have probably said it will get worse before it gets better. Which is true. Your golf swing is a neural pathway – a movement pattern, a sequence of bodily actions your brain has learnt. When you make swing changes, you are trying to teach your brain a new movement, sequence or timing of that movement pattern. You are altering that neural pathway. This takes repetition, repetition, repetition. Research on neural pathways suggest it may take around 10,000 repetitions to create a strong neural pathway. If you already have a strong neural pathway it could also take a further 10,000 repetitions to unlearn the old neural pathway. But are all repetitions equal?

It is my belief that a swing made hitting a ball will lead to much faster learning than a swing made without a ball. On top of that, making a swing hitting a ball to a target on a course will lead to faster learning than hitting a ball on a range. As far as I’m concerned, the fastest way to learn a new swing is to make the new swing in competition with nerves and pressure and seeing the ball behave exactly as you want.

Easy, right. Well yes, that part might be. But the thousands upon thousands of practice swings, range balls and practice rounds that give you the confidence to trust that new swing under pressure … that’s where the hard work is.

Goals for next week –

I complete my morning practice 3 days per week by Aug 22, 2013

See my original Project Awesome post for details about Project Awesome and links to each week’s posts.