With golf courses and lessons shut down, the internet becomes an even more attractive place to pick up drills and tips. But if you do so, exercise extreme caution…
“With so much information out there, what we need is an enlightened approach that enables us to pick and choose what is actually valuable and useful.”
It is a rare golfer indeed who does not want to improve their game. However, as this New World of social distancing and closed facilities persists, opportunities for doing so are limited. Fortunately – or perhaps unfortunately – there are resources that remain available to us: the internet, and social media.
Sad to report, something we coaches face on a daily basis is golfers that are struggling with their games as a direct result of attempting to implement online information. Instead of seeking in-person advice for their dimpled woes, or purchasing quality information via a reputable source like Today’s Golfer, they hunt down self-published, unvetted information from the latest social media sensation.
In theory, there is nothing wrong with this; there’s certainly some good content out there. The issue is that none of it is individualised, and the quality of this ‘treatment’ becomes solely reliant on effective self-diagnosis. And with few club golfers experts, the information you discover can easily become at best useless, and at worst actually damaging. It’s the modern-day equivalent of 28-handicap ‘Old John’ accosting you on the range and showering you with unsolicited pearls of wisdom.
With so much information out there, what we need is an enlightened approach that enables us to pick and choose what is actually valuable and useful. Base your future browsing around these three practices:
Perform a social media cleanse: You need to eliminate junk information. Junk information is typically short-form, flashy, emotionally charged and often found on social media. It is unreliable, unhelpful, unimportant. Neutralise its influence by implementing a social media cleanse; If being connected with a person, group or company isn’t adding value to your life or helping you grow, develop or improve, unfollow!
Identify evidence-based sources: Good information is typically long-form (books, podcasts, articles, documentaries etc), often analytical, and inevitably encouraging deep engagement and thought. There’s two key benefits of limiting yourself to long-form content:
• It requires more research and thought than short-form content. Stupidity in a tweet can sound deep. Stupidity repeated for 10,000 words quickly makes itself apparent.
• It hones our attention and encourages us to ruminate for extended periods of time, immerses us in a topic, reduces impulsive response and encourages critical thought.
Practise self-discipline: Freedom in the 21st century is about committing to less, not having more. Building a relationship with a similar-minded friend and/or coach can help; when one of you craves a YouTube binge or wants to implement the next “wonder move”, you can add balance and objectivity to the situation. Not only does that make learning golf more effective, easier, interesting and fun; it also helps you establish much-needed boundaries and trains your attention to ensure you’re focusing on the right things.
Thanks for reading (and following ;)
Oliver C. Morton
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