Here you will learn why “doing it wrong” can sometimes be an important part of learning well. Here you’ll discover why effective golf learning does not always look like the swing you eventually want to use on the golf course.
In golf coaching, we normally try to make a movement simpler and easier to control. Sometimes, however, it can be beneficial to do exactly the opposite during practice.
One such situation occurred during a short shot around the green.
Our original goal was a relatively quiet movement with as little additional wrist action as possible. The fewer unnecessary movements that need to be coordinated, the easier it can become to return the club to the ground correctly and maintain consistent impact.
However, the golfer repeatedly used his wrists much more actively.
Instead of trying to eliminate this movement completely, we deliberately exaggerated it for several shots.
The more difficult task becomes the practice exercise
The golfer was now asked to use his wrists deliberately and much more noticeably.
At first, this sounds contradictory. After all, our long-term goal was actually to see less wrist action.
But that was precisely the challenge.
By increasing the amount of wrist hinge, the relationship between the hands, the club and the ground changes much more throughout the movement. Functionally, the club initially becomes shorter. As the swing continues, the golfer must reorganise this change so that, at impact, the club once again returns to the ground in the correct position.
The golfer therefore had to solve a far more demanding coordinative task than during his normal movement pattern.
The movement itself is not the real training goal
This exercise is therefore not about teaching the golfer to play with as much wrist action as possible in the future.
The exaggerated movement is a deliberately designed stress test.
Can the golfer still control impact despite a much greater change in the movement? Can they recognise when and how the club changes throughout the swing? And can they deliberately exaggerate a movement that would normally happen almost unconsciously before learning to reduce it again?
This is exactly where an important part of the learning process begins.
Simply trying not to make an unwanted movement does not automatically create control over it. Sometimes it is more effective to experience both ends of the movement spectrum.
We practise once with very little wrist movement and then deliberately with a great deal of wrist movement.
The version with more wrist action is considerably more demanding. It requires the golfer to organise acceleration, force production, the direction of the applied force and overall timing so that a functional impact and a useful result are still achieved.
In other words, we are not training excessive wrist movement as the standard technique. We are training the ability to control movement consciously.
This is a skill the golfer will need throughout the golf course.
Variation can develop greater control
In our Practice Lab, we do not use these kinds of variations because the more difficult movement should eventually become the golfer’s standard technique.
We use them because they help golfers learn more about their own movement.
A deliberately exaggerated variation changes the demands on timing, impact control and coordination. The important point is that the exercise is not simply made harder. Instead, it is designed to challenge the golfer without overwhelming them.
Afterwards, we return to the simpler movement again.
Very often, golfers understand this movement much better because they have not only been told what to do, but have also experienced how it changes when they deliberately explore the opposite.
Effective learning does not always mean repeating only the “correct” movement
Golf coaching is therefore not simply about copying the perfect movement over and over again.
Sometimes we learn more by changing a task, exaggerating part of the movement or deliberately making it more difficult.
The objective always remains the same: to develop greater control for the situations we will actually face later on the golf course.
What the research says
The idea of not practising a movement exclusively in its desired final form is supported by findings from motor learning research. Studies on variable practice and the Challenge Point Framework suggest that learning can benefit when tasks are deliberately varied or made temporarily more demanding.
The key is not simply to make a movement harder. The level of difficulty has to match both the golfer and the learning objective. That is exactly what happened here. The exaggerated wrist movement was never intended to become a new standard technique. Instead, it was used as a carefully designed learning task to improve perception, coordination and impact control.
The real value of the exercise therefore lies not in the exaggerated movement itself, but in the additional movement control that the golfer can develop for their normal movement afterwards.
An example from our Golf Learning System
This Golf Learning Insight is part of the Practice Lab within our Golf Learning System.
Exercises like this are part of our Practice Lab within the Golf Learning System. The aim is not simply to correct a golfer’s technique, but to systematically develop abilities such as perception, impact control, variation and adaptability.
The goal is for golfers not only to repeat a single “correct” movement, but to gradually understand how movements change and how they can respond to those changes.
Experience these learning tasks in our golf lessons
Exercises like these are not created from a fixed recipe. What matters is which movement the golfer wants to control, which ability is still missing and which learning task can best help develop that ability through better perception and understanding.
In our beginner golf courses and golf courses for handicap golfers in Mallorca, we combine technical coaching with carefully designed learning tasks, variation and the later transfer of these skills onto the golf course.
The goal is not to complete as many exercises as possible. The goal is to use learning tasks that help golfers understand their movement better, develop greater control and become able to apply what they have learned independently on the golf course.
This approach to skill development is an important part of our Golf Learning System and is continuously developed within the Practice Lab.
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