PGA Teaching Professional Danny Crowley's Philosophy

The art and science of teaching golf has been my life-long research and study in my pursuit of excellence in the field of teaching, but what’s more important than my acquired skills and knowledge in teaching, is my acquired skills and knowledge in the art and science of student learning in golf. Student learning in golf is my passion and at the heart of what guides my daily teaching-learning experiences. Students of golf must understand the means of learning how to learn so that teaching can accurately guide students in their learning process. My philosophy in learning is based on research, observation, experience, and study in how students learn to learn and learn specific to golf. My role as a teacher in student learning is to provide guidance in how students learn to learn while providing information that is consistent with how students learn in the game of golf. As prepared learners in golf, students will be able to provide accurate learning feedback and receive accurate instructional guidance, thereby accelerating their learning and progress in acquiring skills in golf. Philosophies in teaching and in learning must mirror one another, for quality teaching must mirror quality learning. My learning philosophy will serve to provide student support and momentum in learning through the art of learning in golf.

One man's mind cannot work another man's body.

Sir Walter Simpson
1887 The Art of Golf

Golf is art and science. There is an art and science to learning in golf. There is a physical science of biomechanics applied in form and function and a psychological science in the mind-body relationship. But, there is also an art in how the physical and psychological sciences are applied in student learning, training, and performing. The art of student learning is unique to the student's use of the defined cognitive process in learning how to learn. The art of learning how to learn will be the student's means to acquiring ownership of how to learn and ultimately what they learn. Accurate, timely, and successful learning will prepare students for enjoyable training and performing experiences in the game of golf for a lifetime. Experience the art of learning as your means of owning your golf swing.

My teaching philosophy is based on research, observation, experience, and years of studying the art and science of teaching. My philosophy in teaching is founded on principles of my philosophy in learning and guides my approach to teaching. In the interest of a positive teacher-student relationship in teaching and learning, my teaching philosophy compliments my learning philosophy. My philosophy in teaching is consistent with how students learn, train, and perform in golf. Any teaching philosophy must express and hold the student's learning at heart. In my role as a teacher, I always strive to be a better teacher as an answer to any student's learning difficulties.

I deeply believe that in writing our thoughts unseen wisdom rises to the occasion

Golf's Sacred Journey
by David L. Cook, PH. D.

My teaching philosophy has evolved through many years of research, study, observation, and experience with PGA teachers, coaches, golf professionals, and professional golfers. My teaching philosophy is based on my learning philosophy in that quality teaching must mirror quality learning. A student must be properly prepared in knowing how to learn in golf before teaching-learning can begin. Effective student learning requires a defined curriculum and an approach to teaching that is appropriate to the manner in which students learn in golf. Instruction must be based on understandings in the value and required disciplines in the basics of golf. As a teacher, my short-term role is to identify the student's faulty concepts of the golf swing and replace them with valid concepts. How students understand their golf swings is important because what is seen in a golf swing is caused by what is not seen. How the student perceives and understands the golf swing will be responsible for what can be seen in their golf swings. My long-term role as a teacher is to provide structured learning and a purpose for required physical and instrument relationships, shapes, motions, and actions that will provide students with structured understandings in the basic form and function of the golf swing. Structured understandings will provide students with the means of possessing a cognitive ownership of their golf swings, while enabling them to think and conceptualize their golf swing in creative ways to meet the infinite demands of the game of golf. The objective of my teaching philosophy is providing the necessary means and guidance to ensure students experience momentum in accurate and successful learning, training, and performance.

Excerpt originally appeared in Houston Golf Magazine by Jay Hall and Danny Crowley © 2003

How Golfers Learn
Learning is defined psychologically as a change in thinking. Cognitive and human factor psychologists study how what golfers think affects what they do, and what they do determines how they feel. Viewed from this perspective, learning to make a proper golf swing begins with learning how to think about making a proper swing.

"One's golf swing," wrote the great British Teaching Pro Percy Boome, "can be no better than one's concept of the golf swing." In other words, how golfers conceive their golf swings dictates how they make their golf swings. This means a proper mental set-up for conceiving is needed for acquiring golf skills. That's where experience comes in.

Using Experience to Learn
Have you ever pounded balls on the practice tee and, and you watch some skitter along the ground while others fly off to the right or dive to the left, become so frustrated that you want to throw your club down the range? Then, have you suddenly hit a dead-solid perfect shot that seems to have come out of nowhere? Have you ever just stood there, in awe of your own unexpected accomplishment? If so--however brief the moment--what did you learn from the experience?

Teaching is really the art of assisting discovery

Mark Van Doren

Maybe you learned that you do in fact have the ability to make a good swing. That can be an important lesson. But what did you learn about how to make a good swing? What did you learn about how to do it again? What lessons were you able to take away from the practice tee to use on the golf course? If you are like most golfers, your answer is nothing!

The fist change in thinking most of us golfers need to make is the notion that experience is the best teacher. The psychological fact is that none of us learns anything from experience alone.

We learn from the way we recall our experience.
Research by cognitive psychologists has shown that we learn virtually nothing from our experiences. Most experiences occur too quickly and have too many pieces with too little structure to allow learning to occur. The golf swing is a good case in point--it takes about one and a half seconds from start to finish and involves a golf implement traveling between 90 and 100 miles per hour. There is too much going on in too little time for anyone to learn anything from experiencing a golf swing other than perhaps the results it produces.

Insist on yourself never imitate

Ralph Waldo Emerson

This means that we learn and change our thinking after the fact--from the way we recall the experience--rather than during the experience itself! This cognitive process is at the core of learning. For a golf lesson to be successfully learned, the design of the teaching-learning experience ideally should conform to the way we humans learn.

A Learning Process for Golfers
Cognitive learning is based in experience but its lessons come from the particular elements of the experience we happen to recall. Psychologists call such elements constructs because they are the building blocks used to reconstruct an experience in such a manner as to create a cognitive model of the experience. In learning the motions of golf, a construct is not the same as a "tip" or "swing thought" or a "magic move" or a "feel". Rather it is a reliable and valid guideline for motion that "fits" logically with other constructs so our mind's eye can combine and assemble them all into a cognitive model of what we hope to learn.

The model we build in our mind dictates what we learn.
We have all experienced times when several individuals received the same precise instruction and walked away with several different interpretations of the learning point--different lessons learned from the same experience. A learning format that guides everyone toward the same learning point may be the missing piece on the teaching and learning of golf. It may be that to improve their performance, golfers should first learn how to learn--how to use their experiences to build a mental model they can take with them to the first tee.

The learning process for golfers flows something like this:

• Experience: for example, trying to strike a ball with a golf implement
• Reflection: thinking about the experience after the fact, about sensations and feelings, about the results obtained and what might have caused them--learning begins when the experience ends
• Recall: recalling bits and pieces of the experience--that is, swing constructs--such as sense of balance, effort expended, body part producing or controlling the swing that best describes the experience
• Reconstruction: selecting the most relevant and likely swing constructs to describe and reconstruct the swing experience for your mind's eye in the simplest way that will explain all the data
• Model Building: Identifying relationships among and between the various swing constructs recalled so that, in the simplest way possible, a cognitive model--a structure seen by your mind's eye--that accounts for all the data can be built
• Learning: changing how you think about your golf swing--that is, using the cognitive model you have built in place of the actual experience as a mental reference you can take with you for teaching yourself desired skills and lessons wherever you go

Golfers who know how to learn from experience can take their mental model with them wherever they go and use it to instruct themselves on the course.

Mind-side preparation for body-side execution.

Learning skills must precede technique skills for peak performance skills. Great golf swings and performance follow learning how to learn, how to train, and how to practice; the means of peak performance. In learning how to learn specific to golf, the student will develop a process and art form in learning, as in learning how to train accurately and successfully. Proper learning and training for skill acquisition prepares the student for what to practice and how to develop practice routines with purpose in having an appreciation in the value in each and every golf experience. Proper practice routines for habit formations is the means of consistency and peak performance. This process will prepare the student for achieving excellence in learning and performance.

Crowley Golf Training • 1001 East Memorial Loop Drive, Houston TX, 77007 • (281) 435-1325 • dannycrowley@pga.com