From the beginning in golf research into skill acquisition has primarily addressed the teacher’s skills in teaching while neglecting important correlations in the relationship between instruction and how students cognitively learn. Teaching in golf has relied on student sensory preferences such as visual, feel, audio, as a primary identity as to how to impart information, as though, this alone would adequately prepare students and facilitate learning. These are sensory terms used as effective means of gathering information, but have little to do with how students cognitively learn. Teaching in itself, has very little to do with student learning, but, for the most part, has been widely accepted throughout the history of the game of golf, as the primary means of student learning. Historically, our teaching paradigm, has given little attention to how students cognitively learn and has proven to be a very frustrating and often ineffective as a sole means of student learning. But, today, we are beginning a slow transition from today’s physical teaching centered paradigm into a cognitive learning centered paradigm, where the curriculum and instruction will be consistent with how students learn.
A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions – as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.
Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher, 1844 – 1900
My long time instructor Jackson Bradley, PGA
In 2002, I was the teaching professional at Augusta Pines Golf Club, in Spring, Texas. One afternoon, I was introduced to Dr. Jay Hall, a club member who enjoyed playing the game of golf, as well as the physical and psychological study of the game. He was a Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He was a social psychologist with specialties in cognitive-behavioral learning and author of seven books including (The Executive Trap) written on the psychological correlations between the games people play and the way they function in life. The Executive Trap is a book that demonstrates just how closely the way you play the game parallels your performance as a business professional. Dr. Hall was an avid golfer and student of the game and techniques who recognized the challenges in instruction and student learning. Early on, in our conversations, it became evident we shared similar views and interest in researching the physical and psychological relationships of a golf curriculum, instruction, and student learning. We agreed on a project that would require thinking outside the box of current understandings in teaching and would require years of research into the relationships of a curriculum design, teaching, and student learning. Using a structured cognitive process, we began building a curriculum consistent with how students cognitively learn. After fifteen years of field-testing our research, we have created a curriculum and written a manuscript together called, “Critical GolfThink”. Our manuscript provides teachers and students alike, the means in how to conceive and conceptualize the golf swing in terms of how they think. This approach to teaching and student learning, enables students to achieve a conceptual and physical ownership of their golf swings. Golf is such an awesome mental and physical study with very few, if any, ever achieving mastery, however, students of the game can achieve a level of mastery in how they learn. To quote Michael Hebron, PGA Master Professional “A master of anything was first a master learner.”
