Learning and Improving

Introduction

I don’t meet many golfers who don’t want to get better or who aren’t ‘working’ on something in their game. This potential for improvement is one of the main reasons why people fall in love with it. Golf is a tough sport to master and therefore, it feels rewarding when you make progress.

If you aren’t learning and improving in the way you’d like, I hope this article might help you understand why. If things are progressing well, it might help stop you falling for a common pitfall that can set you back.

Addicted to Outcomes?

The game is hard. But the fact that every golfer at some point can hit a fantastic golf shot is a reminder of our potential to improve. The challenge seems to be discovering how and why such a great result occurred. The human mind is an amazing problem solving machine, and golf provides lots of opportunities to create theories and concepts. We enjoy the feeling of figuring things out.

No sooner have we solved one golfing problem than another one arises. There is always the feeling that another breakthrough is just around the corner. It can become addictive

This is where many golfers fall into a trap that can diminish their experience of the game, rather than enhance it. If the ego gets involved and you mistakenly believe that it is the outcome, rather than the insight that leads to the feelings of satisfaction, then you gradually start to make your enjoyment dependent on your performance rather than on the love of learning. It’s a subtle shift but one that can have a detrimental impact on your relationship with the game.

If you are feeling stuck and frustrated with a lack of progress, you have my sympathy. We have all been there. Unfortunately there are many golfers in a similar position, and the golf instruction industry has to accept some responsibility for this. It feeds the culture and the belief that many golfers have that the only way to enjoy the game is to improve and to play better. This feeds the feelings of frustration and dissatisfaction that many of us have experienced at some point

Where Does Understanding Take Place?

But what is it about these moments where ‘something just clicks’ that is so satisfying and rewarding?

Every golfer knows the feeling. One moment you were stuck and frustrated, the next moment you understood something and you felt free and happy.

It’s important to understand that this Aha! moment doesn’t take place at the level of the intellect or the personal mind. It comes from a deeper place. Logic and rational thinking might have led you to the realisation, but the feeling of ‘knowing’ or ‘getting it’ doesn’t happen at the level of the mind.

It arises from the source of who we really are. It is a reminder. Perhaps this is why we enjoy and value the feeling of understanding so highly?

The Best Reason for Learning

The purpose for playing the game is enjoyment. When we make our enjoyment of the game conditional on reaching goals, whether in terms of learning or performance, we are placing conditions on our own happiness.

Remember when you started playing golf. You probably weren’t as competent as you are now, but you fell in love with the game. You saw the challenge of learning as something to be embraced and enjoyed, rather than something to be overcome and got over with.

Most golfers know the enjoyment and satisfaction that can be experienced from a few hours on a nice piece of turf, a pile of clean golf balls and a new idea of how to improve something. The anticipation of a discovery or an insight. The feeling of joy if and when it arises.

It’s the golfing equivalent of a scientist conducting an experiment in the lab, or an artist in the studio on the cusp of a moment of inspiration.

Conclusion

When we enjoy learning for the sake of learning, for the feeling of figuring things out and for the moments of understanding, then golf will always be enjoyable. However, it is easy to slip into learning as a means to an end. As a route to performance. When we become too attached to the outcome of a lesson or a practice session, we start getting in our own way. We become frustrated and impatient and our capacity to learn is diminished.

If you are taking lessons or practicing and not improving. If you are feeling stuck and frustrated with your game, just check that you haven’t subverted your love of learning and turned it into a slightly more enlightened desire for performance. We all want to play well and improve. But so often setting goals and judging our learning based on our performances rather on the quality of the learning process gets in the way.

If you approach your play and practice with curiosity and an open mind, you can’t help learning. You might not learn what you think (or someone else thinks) you should learn, but that might be a useful lesson in itself.