January 4, 2019 3:42 pm

By Jon Woodroffe – Master Professional at World of Golf London

This month’s tip is aimed at anybody who has taken golf instruction in the last year to correct a fault and found it has worked. This instruction may either be a formal lesson, or a tip found on YouTube, but if it worked, then this is for you.

I have been coaching golf for 40 years and so I can speak with some authority on the fact that people always will regress to their old habits and will very rarely pick up new ones as they go along. They tend to forget what the correction they made that worked so well was. As PGA professionals, it is our job to remember for them. So if you are getting going with your golf down the range in preparation for the coming season and things seem a little out of whack, rather than searching for some new miracle cure for your ills, please go back to the changes that worked in the past. They also will be the easiest changes to make as you will have a memory of doing it that way before.

A good way to think of this is that making any movement requires your brain to send a message to the muscles along neurological pathways. Initially, forging these pathways is akin to chopping through a jungle with a machete. Once the pathway is there, no problem. Then after a period of time, when the golfer has returned to old habits, that pathway has become a little overgrown, but only requires a light touch with a strimmer, to become clear again.

Make sure you check out how you corrected your golf in the past, before trying anything new. It could save you a lot of time and effort.

Categorised in: Golf instructors, Golf lessons