subject: A Cure for Golf Choking [print this page] A Cure for Golf Choking A Cure for Golf Choking
Choking occurs when when a golfer over thinks a movement that would otherwise be automatic. Professional golfers train until their muscle movements are smooth and automatic. Tour pros need to rely on an automatic swing to produce accurate golf shots. Yet, many of golf's great champions have experienced choking under pressure. Greg Norman during the 1996 Masters is a classic example. Under pressure when anxiety is high the thinking mind can take over and interfere with the greater competence of an automatic stroke. The deliberating mind can not keep up with a highly competent automated golf stroke. When you focus attention on your swing mechanics and positions it interferes with the quality of shot making.
Understanding the role over thinking plays in the golf stroke has implications not only for experienced golfers who have well practiced golf swings, but also for those learning the game. Physical skills researchers have found that giving verbal instructions on the technical details of a complex skill, like golf, can actually impair learning. Instructions may increase awareness but deliberating on too many movements during practice or under stressful conditions has been linked to poorer performance. One way around over thinking is to keep your attention on the movements effect or an object rather than to the motion itself -- keep your focus away from body movement and put it instead on the movement of the club shaft, club head, ball, an external focus. Focusing on the complex series of actions your body makes to produce an action hinders performance. Dr. Gabriele Wulf who has conducted numerous studies on this topic concludes "The adoption of an external focus promotes the utilization of relatively automatic control processes - making performance more effective and efficient."
Golf instructors best help students learn by encouraging motions with an eye focused outside of the body. For example, an instructor might encourage their students to focus on the pendulum-like motion of the golf club instead of their arm movements. The focus is on the club's motion not on the body's motion. A golf student will learn more quickly and perform better if attention is on the effect, result or outcome of the process rather than on the series of actions that produce it. A well trained experienced golfer will perform best when the swing is on automatic and the focus is the putt disappearing into the hole.
