Why good golf coaching is not about giving as many corrections as possible, but about recognising what the golfer actually needs at the right moment.
In golf coaching, it is tempting to respond to a problem immediately with more information. The strike is inconsistent, the ball flight is not right or a movement only works some of the time, so we start looking for the next technical correction.
But not every problem needs another solution straight away. Sometimes the golfer already has enough information and mainly needs time to coordinate and stabilise what has already been developed.
This distinction became particularly clear during one of our recent course weeks.
Sometimes less new information is the better decision
During the first few days, the golfer had worked on several fundamentals in both the short and long game. These included strike quality, ground contact, body movement and a better understanding of different types of shots.
By the third day, there were certainly other technical points we could have introduced. We deliberately chose not to.
Not because that information was unimportant, but because there was already enough new material to work with.
The golfer first needed to work with what he already knew: experiment, repeat, notice differences and gradually become better at recognising for himself why one attempt worked better or worse than another.
For us, good practice therefore means neither giving as little nor as much technical information as possible. What matters is which information the golfer needs at that moment to solve the next task sensibly while still having enough time to stabilise what has already been learned. Once a solution has become a little more stable, the golfer can often take in and make sense of new information more effectively.
When repetition alone is no longer enough
The following day, however, something different became clear.
An important piece of the puzzle was still missing in his strike. The golfer had already improved several parts of the movement, but he did not yet understand the relationship between ball contact and ground contact well enough.
At that point, simply repeating the same thing would not have solved the real problem.
We therefore took time to explain the strike more clearly: how shaft position, weight distribution and ground contact work together, and why for this particular shot we wanted to develop a strike in which the club contacts the ball first and the ground afterwards.
To make the new information easier to apply, we first simplified the task.
Instead of trying to introduce the new information immediately into a full golf swing, we started with shots of around 30 metres using a sand wedge. The smaller movement made it easier to notice the relationship and experiment with the new solution.
Only when this task was working well enough could we move on to the next step.
The next step does not automatically have to be another piece of technical information. Once the strike quality became more reliable in the simplified task, we could change the challenge and apply what had been developed in a more realistic playing situation.
On the golf course, another layer is added: the environment begins to influence our attention. A bunker can suddenly seem more important than the actual task. But it does not automatically change what is required to play a good shot.
If the ball is struck cleanly, the bunker is not a problem. So do not turn it into one.
What matters is keeping attention on the information that is genuinely relevant to the shot: the lie of the ball, the strike, the shot task and the target.
The golfer is therefore learning more than simply how to execute a shot. He is gradually learning to recognise which information matters for the task in front of him and which information does not need to control his attention.
Technique does not automatically create precision
This distinction is important in our coaching.
A technical change can become visible relatively quickly. The golfer can make a different movement, change the way weight is distributed or deliver the club differently into the ball.
But that does not mean the movement can already be coordinated precisely.
Strike, timing, body movement and club movement need to become increasingly well coordinated. This coordinative development needs opportunities to repeat, notice and adjust.
If we respond to every variation by immediately introducing another technical change, what has already been developed may not get enough time to continue evolving.
We also discuss this distinction between a visible change and a skill that becomes increasingly available in the Golf Learning Insight When is a technical change in golf really learned?
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The exercise itself is not the method
With increasing coaching experience, another question becomes more and more important:
What is this golfer actually missing right now?
Does he need new technical information? Does an existing piece of information need to be understood better? Does he need more attempts with the same task? Should we simplify the task? Or is what has been developed already reliable enough to add a new challenge?
These decisions cannot always be determined in advance by a fixed practice plan. They emerge from observing what the golfer is showing at that moment.
The practice plan gives us structure, but the golfer’s response also helps determine which next step makes sense.
We therefore do not change tasks simply because variation is assumed to be better than repetition. Repetition and variation serve different purposes. What matters is when each form helps the golfer at their current stage of learning.
Sometimes a golfer needs several similar attempts to organise a solution more effectively. At another stage, a different distance, another club or a different lie can show whether that solution remains available under new demands.
How we structure these practice processes, assess them and adapt them to the individual golfer is a central part of our Practice Lab.
Learning independently does not mean being left alone
The golfer’s growing independence also plays an important role in this process.
For us, independent learning does not mean leaving the golfer to experiment without guidance. At first, the coach helps the golfer ask better questions, distinguish relevant information and interpret feedback. With increasing experience, the golfer should gradually take over more of this process.
That is why in practice we often ask more than whether a shot was good or bad. We want to know what the golfer noticed, what they think caused the result and what they would change on the next attempt.
The answer also helps the coach. It shows what has already been understood and where information may still be missing.
Especially during our golf courses for advanced and handicap golfers, we can observe and continuously adapt this process over several consecutive days of coaching. That means not every question has to be solved within a single lesson.
Finding the right next step
Good golf coaching is therefore not about having the largest possible collection of drills and technical corrections.
When they are used matters as well.
The coach observes what the golfer already understands and can perform. The next learning decision comes from that observation, not from a rigid sequence that is the same for every golfer. Sometimes that means explaining. Sometimes repeating. Sometimes simplifying. Sometimes making the task more difficult. And sometimes it means deliberately waiting a little longer.
A drill is therefore not automatically good or bad. Its value also depends on whether it solves the right problem at the right time.
This is an important part of our Golf Learning System: developing technical skills and then guiding the learning process so that they become increasingly precise, adaptable and usable on the golf course.
We collect more practical observations from our coaching, real playing situations and the continued development of our training system in our Golf Learning Insights.
Monnard Widmer Coaching Insight
Good coaching does not mean always giving a new solution. It means recognising whether the next step needs more information, more repetition or a different task.
