There are hundreds of golf teachers, books, videos and DVDs to tell you what to do in golf, but few instructional methods tell you how to do it. If you want to improve your golf swing and make those improvements last, you'll need to follow a three-step process that helps you learn, retain and recall swing skills.
Blocked Practice
When you try a new skill for the first time, such as keeping your elbow in or leading with your hips, you'll want to learn the skill by practicing the swing technique in the same way, with the same club from the same lie. This type of practice helps you learn more quickly, but is a short-term learning tool. Once you get comfortable with the new skill and feel you understand it and can repeat it, you'll want to overlearn it.
Overlearning requires that you hit 50 percent of the balls it took you to figure out the new skill. If it took you 40 balls, you'll want to hit another 20 before you move on to the next step of practice. Research has shown that trying to develop "muscle memory" by continuing to hit ball after ball does not help promote improvement and may degrade your skills as your central nervous system and muscles fatigue and make compensatory movements.
Variable Practice
Once you've figured out the new swing skill, can reproduce it and have finished your 50 percent overlearning, it's time to start working on your ability to retain that skill in your brain so you can use it after today's practice session. This requires you to begin variable practice.
With variable practice, you'll practice the same swing motion, but you'll vary your clubs and lies. Hit a long iron six to eight times, then change to fairway wood that requires you to use the same technique, and practice the swing six to eight times. Continue to move among your clubs, seeing if you can successfully execute the new skill with each club. If you lose the skill, go back to the blocked learning phase.
Random Practice
If you are able to use the technique with different clubs, off a tee or the ground, it's time to work on your ability to recall the skill, or use it every few minutes, the same way you do on the course. This requires random practice.
With random practice, you move from club to club and lie to lie each shot. You don't get to hit six to eight shots with the same club from the same lie on the course, so you'll need to make your practice sessions more realistic. Even if you are working on your pitching wedge, end your practice playing simulated holes, starting with a drive off a tee, a second shot with a long iron, then your pitching wedge. Make your practice like your game, so your game will be like your practice. If you can't maintain the new skill at this phase of practice, go back to variable practice.
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