CE Golf

Muscle Memory

Learning, as it relates to the golf swing, occurs when an effort to move the body in a certain way is transformed from a conscious action to an automatic action requiring no thought. This automatic motion is called Motor Memory, or more commonly—muscle memory. For all intents and purposes, it's as if the muscles have a mind of their own and they can perform amazingly complex motions without a person having to think about them.

The transformation from a simple motion requiring conscious thought to one controlled by motor memory takes time—longer than most would imagine. This is an unbelievably crucial point for golfers because if they stop practicing something before it has become motor memory, it will be lost!

For this reason, I recommend all golfers practice a new motion for about four weeks (if practicing regularly) before moving on to another. Unfortunately, most golfers work on something for a few days, or at most a few weeks, and this, along with improper practice and poor instruction, are probably the three biggest reasons most amateurs never improve!

One final, but very important, note—many golf instructors recommend golf lessons spaced at weekly or biweekly intervals. Considering what you've just read, what do you think will happen if you were to take lessons spaced like this? That's right, every time you take a lesson and start work on something new, you'll be losing what you tried to learn from the previous lesson (but didn't).

If your instructor does this, run away from them as fast as you can! I'd suggest finding a better instructor, but even this simple concept of how long it takes to learn a movement is not well understood by most instructors. If you look hard enough, maybe you'll find an instructor who not only knows what to teach, but also knows how to teach!

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Casey Eberting Golf Instruction