By T.J. TOMASI
Their swings are different, their backgrounds are different, and their body types aren’t all the same, either, but all the great players have one thing in common: They’ve performed years of nonstop practice that, coupled with correct information, has built a championship game. And the big news is that you already have on board the machine to drive this dynamic duo of information and practice — your brain.
That 3-pound universe that sits between your shoulders is a powerhouse problem solver with 100 billion neurons, each one with 15,000 or so fingerlike projections that reach out to one another and form neural networks that operate in nanoseconds. You are a learning machine. In fact, research by Dr. Patricia K. Kuhl at the University of Washington shows that babies begin to learn while they are inside the womb. For humans, it’s never too early to start learning.
The process of learning your golf swing (or anything else) begins when you challenge your brain by flooding it with new information. The overload creates a period of chaos that prompts your brain to add capacity to handle the new surplus. Your brain grows as you learn.
So there’s no question that you’re a lean, mean, learning machine; it’s in your genes. The point is that you have the wherewithal to play good golf — all you have to do is program in the correct information and then practice.