Outrageous Golf Fraud
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 4:16 pm
The Golf Channel has started airing the latest in their series of celebrity golf tune ups, this time featuring the Golf Cinderellization of Michael Phelps, swimmer extraordinaire. Previous celebrities featured on the show have been Charles Barkley, Rush Limbaugh, Ray Romano, and a few others.
Oddly, other than short-term, minimal improvements, none of the previous subjects of the program have actually improved their golf games, despite intensive, top-level instruction and despite playing much more than the typical casual golfer. Barkley still stinks, Limbaugh is still a hacker, and Romano is still shooting in the 90's.
The Program, and in fact golf instruction itself, is largely fraudulent - sold on a false premise.
This is because a good golf swing is something that must be the product of "muscle memory," and muscle memory is something that cannot occur during adulthood. In my opinion, the deadline for muscle memory is about 10 years old, but honest physiologists disagree about the exact age. A 27-year-old, male or female, can repeat a swing a Brazillion times under the close observation of the greatest golf analysit in the world, and the Brazillionth swing is no more likely to be a "perfect" one than the first. I know this from personal experience as well as from readings on the subject. Notice the bio's of every golfer on tour: ALL of them took up the game as little chlldren.
The reality of "muscle memory" is easily observed in two arenas. First and most obviously, consider people who learn to ride a bicycle as adults. Riding a bike is a complex task that requires coordination of many muscles to propel, balance, and steer the bike simultaneously. And to ride a bike competently, YOU CANNOT BE THINKING ABOUT RIDING THE BIKE, you have to be watching your surroundings for obstacles, safety hazards, and your immediate destination. People who learn to ride as adults must always be thinking about the riding process, and they will never be competent enough to ride in heavy traffic or mountain-bike. It just won't happen. If you learned to ride as a child, all of that muscle activity is intuitive and you don't even have to think about it. This is what is meant by "muscle memory."
Also, consider those who have had a stroke as an adult and have to re-learn how to walk, They NEVER completely re-learn it, because walking must be a matter of muscle memory.
Swinging a golf club is just such an activity. If you haven't learned how to hit a golf ball by the time you are ten years old, you will NEVER be a GOOD golfer.
Most golf instruction is based on the false premise that if you practice "enough," you will develop muscle memory and your swing will become "automatic," so that when hitting a golf ball you can think about WHERE YOU WANT THE GOLF BALL TO GO rather than HOW YOU ARE HITTING THE BALL. Also, it assumes that there is a "perfect" swing that every golfer must emulate in order to hit the ball properly. This is also baloney.
Proper golf instruction for adults starts with a person's natural golf swing, and adapts it to get the best results. It teaches what clubs to use in given situations - particularly around the green - and how to keep the ball in the fairway. Expectations must be normalized to expect nothing better than "bogey golf" as a goal - meaning that a good round for most adult learners is 15-18 strokes over par for 18 holes. Anything better than that is party time.
This golf program is entertaining for a number of reasons, but to the extent that it is based on a phony premise, it may even be doing the game and its participants a disservice. It promotes the illusion that a casual amateur golfer can become a GOOD golfer, merely by "trying hard" and devoting "sufficient" time and energy, which is bullshit. It might work for swimming, but not for golf.
Oddly, other than short-term, minimal improvements, none of the previous subjects of the program have actually improved their golf games, despite intensive, top-level instruction and despite playing much more than the typical casual golfer. Barkley still stinks, Limbaugh is still a hacker, and Romano is still shooting in the 90's.
The Program, and in fact golf instruction itself, is largely fraudulent - sold on a false premise.
This is because a good golf swing is something that must be the product of "muscle memory," and muscle memory is something that cannot occur during adulthood. In my opinion, the deadline for muscle memory is about 10 years old, but honest physiologists disagree about the exact age. A 27-year-old, male or female, can repeat a swing a Brazillion times under the close observation of the greatest golf analysit in the world, and the Brazillionth swing is no more likely to be a "perfect" one than the first. I know this from personal experience as well as from readings on the subject. Notice the bio's of every golfer on tour: ALL of them took up the game as little chlldren.
The reality of "muscle memory" is easily observed in two arenas. First and most obviously, consider people who learn to ride a bicycle as adults. Riding a bike is a complex task that requires coordination of many muscles to propel, balance, and steer the bike simultaneously. And to ride a bike competently, YOU CANNOT BE THINKING ABOUT RIDING THE BIKE, you have to be watching your surroundings for obstacles, safety hazards, and your immediate destination. People who learn to ride as adults must always be thinking about the riding process, and they will never be competent enough to ride in heavy traffic or mountain-bike. It just won't happen. If you learned to ride as a child, all of that muscle activity is intuitive and you don't even have to think about it. This is what is meant by "muscle memory."
Also, consider those who have had a stroke as an adult and have to re-learn how to walk, They NEVER completely re-learn it, because walking must be a matter of muscle memory.
Swinging a golf club is just such an activity. If you haven't learned how to hit a golf ball by the time you are ten years old, you will NEVER be a GOOD golfer.
Most golf instruction is based on the false premise that if you practice "enough," you will develop muscle memory and your swing will become "automatic," so that when hitting a golf ball you can think about WHERE YOU WANT THE GOLF BALL TO GO rather than HOW YOU ARE HITTING THE BALL. Also, it assumes that there is a "perfect" swing that every golfer must emulate in order to hit the ball properly. This is also baloney.
Proper golf instruction for adults starts with a person's natural golf swing, and adapts it to get the best results. It teaches what clubs to use in given situations - particularly around the green - and how to keep the ball in the fairway. Expectations must be normalized to expect nothing better than "bogey golf" as a goal - meaning that a good round for most adult learners is 15-18 strokes over par for 18 holes. Anything better than that is party time.
This golf program is entertaining for a number of reasons, but to the extent that it is based on a phony premise, it may even be doing the game and its participants a disservice. It promotes the illusion that a casual amateur golfer can become a GOOD golfer, merely by "trying hard" and devoting "sufficient" time and energy, which is bullshit. It might work for swimming, but not for golf.
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