It seems strange to many people that I’ve gone from rock climbing and mountaineering to golf. The two sports are at apparent opposite ends of the “dangerousness” spectrum and do seem very different, but as with most sports there are surprising areas of overlap.
One is to do with the storage of muscle movement sequences in the brain. With climbing you must train yourself not so much to become strong, but to become agile, balanced, and able to perform particular movements around all parts of your body. This is why of new climbers, ladies tend to improve more rapidly than men in the early stages (they cannot rely on strength so must develop technique). In golf there is almost only one movement to learn: the swing. And you never have to do it 20m up a cliff face.
Like the front crawl stroke in swimming, you can either learn the basics and spend a lifetime swimming in the same way (because it works), or you can get coached and constantly work at parts of the stroke looking for improvements. Each new change feels awkward and “wrong” initially, but as the new movements become incorporated into your stroke with drills and lap after lap swimming it becomes natural. Your times come down with no increase in effort (and often with a decrease in effort).
I went to a group golf introduction class on Thursday evening and now I can barely hit the ball. The pro gave me something to work on (and once he pointed it out to me I could see that it is the simplest way for me to improve my swing) and now I’m stuck in no-man’s land. I can’t go back to my old swing because the new movement has been incorporated after a couple of sessions at the driving range, and I haven’t moved on far enough to be able to reproducibly swing and contact the ball. It’s incredibly frustrating, and I can see why so many golfers don’t want to make drastic changes to their swing. It is fascinating to me, however, as I have mainly been involved with endurance sports in the past. As a biologist my interest lies in finding out how things work, and mostly human things these days. In endurance sports it’s easy to see how your body adapts to training, both quickly and in the long term. To see how my brain adapts rapidly (daily, weekly) to these swing changes is great fun, and wasn’t entirely anticipated.
I’m playing a game tomorrow and I expect a torrid time. It’ll be good for the mental part of my game I suppose, and it’s something I’ve met many times before in different sports. Oh well, I’ll just take lots of old balls.
