Golfers have more information available to them now than we ever did before. Carry distance. Ball speed. Launch angle. Spin. Club path. Face angle. Attack angle. Video from three directions. Slow motion. Alignment lasers. Putting gates. Apps that keep track of just about everything except whether you actually trusted the shot.
Most of it is useful.
I use numbers and yes I believe in measuring things. If you are trying to learn your wedge distances and you have no idea whether the ball carried 63 yards or 71, getting an actual number can save you a lot of guessing.
But I have also watched seasoned players become so attached to the information that they barely experience the shot anymore. Sometimes they search for the number before the player has even finished noticing how the strike felt.
That is where useful feedback can start working against you.
The goal is not to get rid of the numbers. The goal is to learn from them, then eventually hit a golf shot without asking the screen whether you did it right.
The Screen Knows. But Do You?
I have been guilty of this myself.
You are working on a wedge distance, and the number becomes the whole session. Hit one, check it, then hit another. Check it, make a little adjustment, then check again.
Sixty-seven.
Seventy-one.
Sixty-nine.
Now you are getting somewhere. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, early in a calibration session, which is exactly the kind of information you may need. The trouble starts when every shot needs confirmation. You hit what feels like a good one, but you do not really trust that feeling until the machine gives you the number.
The monitor says 70 yards.
Okay, good shot. Next one feels a little heavy, you check the yardage, sixty-five. You think, okay that makes sense. Then you hit another. You are not quite sure what happened, so you check the yardage again, and let the number tell you what you just felt.
Do that long enough and something subtle starts happening.
You stop getting better at reading your own shot. You get better at reading the yardage device. That is not the same skill. And unfortunately, there is no launch monitor sitting beside your ball when you have 68 yards over a bunker on the golf course.
Feedback Is Supposed to Teach You Something
Honest feedback should help connect cause and effect. You hit the shot, you have a sense of the strike, flight, and distance. Then the number tells you what actually happened.
That comparison is useful.
Maybe the shot you thought carried 70 actually went 76. Good. Now you learned something. Maybe you were certain a wedge came up short, and the number says you carried it exactly where you wanted. That tells you something too.
The information gives your feel a reference.
That is what I want from technology. I want it to make my own judgment better. I do not want it to replace my judgment.
There is a difference.
If every shot ends with the machine giving you the answer before you have made your own call, you can go through a very impressive practice session without learning much about what the shot felt like from your side of the golf ball.
The equipment is doing all the noticing for you.
Golf Does Not Give You the Answer First
This matters because golf is full of incomplete information. On the course, you pick a number. You read the lie. You account for wind, you choose a club, then you make your best decision and hit the shot.
There is no instant correction ball.
There is no red number popping up on a screen telling you the exact carry before you decide what the shot felt like.
You have to judge it.
You have to develop a relationship between the swing you made and the ball flight you produced. That relationship is a big part of distance control.
You know the feeling I am talking about.
You hit a wedge and almost immediately think, “That’s a little long.” Or “Didn’t quite get that one.” Or you roll a long putt and know from the first few feet that you gave it too much.
That awareness matters.
It gets sharper when you practice using it.
It gets dull when somebody—or something—always gives you the answer first.
Numbers Are Great for Calibration
I would not throw away the launch monitor, quite the opposite.
Use it.
If you are building stock wedge distances, measure them. If you are trying to figure out whether one swing carries 55 or 60 yards, get the number. If you are comparing clubs, measuring rollout, or seeing what a change in trajectory does to carry, good data can clean up a lot of bad assumptions. You might think your three-quarter wedge goes 80 yards because it went 80 once three summers ago.
The monitor may have other news for you.
That is helpful. But once you have some reliable information, start taking the training wheels off. Hit the shot before you see the number.
Better yet, predict the number. That changes everything. Now the machine is not telling you what happened. You are telling the machine what you think happened, and then you are checking yourself.
That is practice.
Predict Before You Peek
Suppose you are working on a 70-yard wedge.
You hit the shot.
Before you look at the monitor, make a call.
Short.
About right.
Long.
You can be more specific if you want. That felt like 67. Then look, maybe it carried 68. Good, your feel was pretty close.
Hit another, this one comes off a little higher and feels soft.
You call 65.
Monitor says 64.
Now you are starting to connect something.
Then maybe you hit one flush, think it is perfect, and the monitor says 76. That is useful too. Do not get mad at the number.
Ask yourself what you missed.
Was the strike different? Did the swing have more speed than you realized? Did the trajectory fool your eye?
This is the kind of feedback I want.
The number helps you learn what the shot felt like. It is not deciding the shot for you.
Video Can Become the Same Crutch
Launch monitors are the obvious example, but this goes farther than numbers.
Video can do it.
Alignment devices can do it.
Putting gates can do it.
Even a coach can do it.
If you need something to tell you after every swing whether it was correct, you have not learned to own the motion yet. There are times when immediate feedback is exactly what you need, especially when you are changing something.
Make the pre-shot rehearsal, check the video, adjust the setup, then hit another.
Fine.
But there should eventually be periods when the camera stays off. The alignment stick goes away, the gate comes out, and the coach stops talking.
And you hit the shot.
That part is easy to overlook because removing feedback can make practice look worse. You may hit more poor shots, your group or balls might spread out, you might not feel as certain, but that does not automatically mean the practice got worse.
It may mean you are finally being asked to solve some of the problems yourself.
Turn the Screen Off for the Last Few Balls
This is one of the simplest changes you can make to a practice session.
Use the technology early to get your numbers, calibrate, and learn what you need to learn. Then finish without it.
Turn the monitor away or cover the number. Have a buddy read it later, whatever works.
Now, hit a few shots based on what you have learned. You may notice that the first ball feels strangely uncomfortable. That is telling because you had the same club, same swing, and same target thirty seconds ago. The only thing missing is the immediate confirmation. If taking away the screen makes you feel lost, that is probably something worth training.
Because the golf course is mostly a no-feedback test.
Try Four Shots
Here is a small experiment for your next practice session.
You can use a launch monitor, rangefinder or simply a visible finish zone. You are not trying to run a complete training program here.
Four shots are enough to learn something:
Choose a distance or target.
Before the first shot, decide what counts as short, center and long.
Keep it simple.
Hit your first shot, but do not check the number yet.
Make your prediction.
Short, center or long.
Do the same with the second shot.
And the third.
Three shots, three predictions, still no numbers. Now check all three results together.
Give yourself one point for each prediction you called correctly. If you also had a target window, give yourself another point whenever the shot finishes inside it.
Then hit one more ball, this is the important one:
No feedback.
Pick the shot.
Commit to it.
Pull the trigger.
Do not check afterward.
Let the final ball belong to you.
The exercise comes straight from the idea behind this article: calibrate with useful information, delay the confirmation, and then see whether you can produce the shot when the confirmation disappears.
Pay Attention to What Happens Before You Look
The results are useful, but there is something else I would watch.
What happens in the couple of seconds after impact?
Did you notice the strike?
Do you watch the flight?
Can you sense the carry?
Or does your attention immediately leave the shot and go looking for the answer?
That habit is worth noticing. If the first thought after every shot is, What did the monitor say?, start giving yourself a few extra seconds. Make your own call first. You are not trying to prove how good your instincts are. You are simply training them. Keep in mind, there will be bad guesses. That is ok, those are useful.
If you predict 60 yards and the ball carried 70, there is a surprisingly good conversation waiting there. What did ten extra yards feel like that you did not recognize?
That is something you can learn from.
Do Not Turn This Into an Anti-Technology Argument
Golf has enough arguments already; this is not one of them. Technology is not ruining feel. If used well, it can help build it faster. You just have to remember what the equipment is there to do.
A launch monitor or range finder is a coach.
A camera is a coach.
An alignment aid is a coach.
Eventually the coach has to get quiet and see what you can do. That is the part seasoned players skip. We keep the training aid in place because practice feels better with it there.
Every ball has an answer and every movement gets confirmation. That is when everything feels organized.
Then Saturday arrives and the support is gone.
Now we wonder why the game feels different.
The Last Ball Tells You Something
I like the idea of finishing a session with a shot that nobody explains to you. There is no screen, or video, and no second ball.
You pick the number.
You see the target.
You pull the trigger.
Then you live with the result and that feels a little more like golf.
And if you have done the earlier work well, you are not guessing. You are using the information you gathered and asking yourself to produce the shot without having the answer handed back to you. That is where feedback starts turning into feel.
The number still mattered, you just did not need it forever. And that is the goal. Use the data to learn then listen to what the shot is telling you. Then check yourself.
Then, every once in a while, put the numbers away and find out what you actually know.
Journal Prompt
Did the feedback teach me, or did I wait for it to tell me what I felt?
That is worth writing down after your next session.
And before you pack up, ask yourself one more question:
Could I hit the last ball without checking the number?
If the answer makes you a little uncomfortable, good.
You just found something worth training.
Train trust, not swing thoughts.
Scott | Distance Control Coach
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