Ben Hogans’ states in his classic book Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf ,  “The average golfer is entirely capable of building and repeating a swing breaking 80 IF he learns to perform a small number of correct movements…”  When you’re out on the course how may average golfers do you see breaking 80?

The basic problem with building a repeatable swing is that although there are relatively few movements required to drive a golf ball, all of the movements must be timed and executed perfectly.  Otherwise the end result will be bad news.  Conversely, only those movements that are necessary need to be included; unnecessary movements need to be excluded.

Modern players have demonstrated that golf is a sport.  Only professional athletes will compete at the highest levels for an extended period of time.  Like any other sport, golf athletes require a disciplined approach to fitness and nutrition to get to and stay at the top of their sport.

Developing a repeatable swing requires 5 distinct steps to achieve success:

1.  Find a good PGA teaching professional.  Remember the last time you learned a new exercise?  At first it felt awkward.  It didn’t feel natural.  It required conscious thoughts in order to produce the desired movements.  After a while the exercise started to feel natural and didn’t require as much thought.  A bit later the exercise didn’t require any thought… you just did it!  Learning to ride a bike for example…

When you first start working with your teaching professional everything will be a mind numbing task.  Many details will be involved in every part of the swing… the setup, the pre-shot routine, the grip, the stance, the backswing, the downswing, the follow through… etc.  With practice and careful attention to the details you’ll find yourself thinking less about the mechanics of the swing while hitting the ball further and straighter.   After a while all the details of the swing will be organized in your “muscle memory”. 

In fact, the best players when playing for big money in front of national audiences must rely on their education, not their knowledge of the game.  If you have to think about every move you’re done.  If you can “grip it and rip it” with perfect form and tempo you’re in the “zone” and the results can be astounding.

Learning to swing the club correctly in the first place is a very good asset.  Studies have shown that it takes about 300 repetitions of a movement pattern in order to develop the motor engrams, or muscle memory, to get to the point where the movement is natural.  It has also been determined that it takes between 3000 and 5000 repetitions of a movement pattern to re-learn an exercise after it has been incorrectly learned.  That’s why it’s so difficult for even professional tour players to make major modifications to their swing.

2.      Develop the flexibility to execute the golf swing.  A repeatable golf swing is the holy grail of golf.  Even the best players have good days and bad days.  But for the average golfer, hitting the ball is a matter of chance.  Sometimes it works… sometimes it doesn’t. 

Golfers that lack the proper flexibility to execute the swing will never have a repeatable swing.  The human body is the master of compensation.  If you lack the flexibility in the shoulders on the back swing the brain will find some other way to achieve the motion.  A lack of range of motion in the shoulders may result in excessive twisting in the hip/low back region.  A lack of flexibility in the neck may result in the golfer taking his eye off the ball for a fraction of a second at the top of the backswing.  What do you think that will do to his ball flight?

Flexibility issues and the associated compensation patterns are also a primary source of golf related injuries such as low back pain, golfer’s elbow (medial epicondylitus on the leading side), tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitus on the trailing side), and wrist and forearm injuries.  Flexibility issues are particularly relevant to older participants.

3.      Develop static and postural stability.  This includes maintaining good posture when initially setting up the shot (static) and maintaining that posture and balance throughout the swing (dynamic).  Have you ever seen someone setup their shot with great precision, slowly execute their backswing, smoothly go through the ball, and loose their balance off their back heals on the follow-through?  Chances are the ball didn’t travel to their intended location.  Proper poise and balance must be maintained throughout the entire swing.  Maintaining good posture and balance requires good core stabilization and strength which can only be attained through proper training.

4.      Develop balanced strength.  Strength must be developed AFTER core stability.  If strength is developed prior to core stability the golf shot will be akin to firing a canon from a canoe…  The ball could end up anywhere and the canoe will end up at the bottom of the lake. 

For the golfer, muscular strength is more focused on endurance.  A round of golf is longer in duration than most other sports and is characterized by long durations of downtime between shots.  In fact, in a typical round of golf, the golf swing is executed only 1 percent of the time.  The rest of the time on the course is spent figuring out where the ball should go and, too often, where the ball actually went.

5.      Develop golf specific power.  Power is the application of strength at full speed.  The distance the ball will fly is a function of the accuracy of the shot and the speed the clubface strikes the ball (for now, let’s ignore other environmental factors such as the club face angle, lie, wind direction, etc.).  Most practice swings are not made at full power.   For high handicap players, most non-practice swings are made at too high of a power level.

Conclusion:  Golf is a deceptively complex sport.  Close enough does not apply.  Pretty good can be disastrous.  In order to get past the “game of chance” round of golf, a repeatable swing must be built through proper instruction and physical conditioning.  Do you want a repeatable, injury free swing?