What make the difference between the #1 player and the #100 player in the world ? What some player perform well during some time and then are not able to perform as well as they used to ?
There is 2 types of training, the one you do to increase you potential and the one you do to increase your performance.
The issues lies in the fact that in Golf those 2 are completely opposite ways of training and you intrinsicaly cannot do both at the same time.
The #1 player is the one that has the greatest potential with the greatest performance over a consistent period of time.
So how does one reach this kind of performance and potential level ? This is what I am going to talk about in this post.
Performance Training
The ability to any golfer to score on the golf course is directly liked to it’s ability to consistently repeat the same movement the same way. To adapt to the differnce situation that may happen. To know their strength and weaknesses. Capitalise on their strength and avoiding their weaknesses using the right tactics and strategy once on the golf course. All of this contribute to build an inner confidence & beleive on the golfer ability to score well on the golf course.
So there is basicaly 3 components to train when the goal is performance:
- Consistency of the technique
- Adaptability
- Tactics & strategy
I am going to leave aside the tactics and strategies part, because the something that you natural develop overtime as you practice. You basicaly build more experience the more you play.
Now, for the Consistency and Adaptability, both imply something realy important: You own your technic. That’s basicaly mean you are confortable in the way you swing the club, it has become as natural as walking.
Therefore you are able to be consistent when consistency is needed and you are able to adapt when adaptation is require.
So the goal of the performance training is basicaly you make you integrate you technique at a subconsicence level. In a way that your swing become part of who you are.
The only way to do that is to understand that repetition make perfect. The more you repeat the same thing over and over, the more confortable & confident you are going to be.
Repeat your techinque, repeat you shots, repeat, repeat, repeat … Get confortable, get confident.
Confidence is the #1 factor of performance on the golf gourse. Which you can only develop through repeating and owning of your craft.
Potential Training
The way I describe the performance training mean that any change you make in your game is going to fight against that. It is going to create unconsistency in your training and crush your confidence. Therefore resulting a drecrease in the performance level of the player.
This is why Performance training and Potential training are intrensicaly opposite.
In a potential training, you are focusing on improving your technique or some area of your game. But In order to do that you need to get out of your confort zone. You need to push you limit and reach new territory.
Performance training is what allow you to unleash your potential. But your performance level cannont exeed you maximum performance level. Therefore you need to training on your potential by wellingly sacrificing your short term performance for an higher longer term performance.
During a potential training you test things, increase your awarness about yourself, open your mind to new possibilities…
Performance variability in the best player in the world
As human we are never satifsfy with what we got. Especialy in competitive environement where the goals is to beat the other guys. The will to improve consistent accross player.
Unfortunately, the understanding that the actual way of improving performance is to just do the same thing over and over, is something that the human brain has a hard time to get.
We easly look for changes to make in order to improve our performance. And then beat ourselves out because we don’t get the performance increase that we were hoping for. This because we have increased our potential, not out performance.
And even if most amateurs golfer have a hard time to understand this difference, the top player in the worlds actualy do. And more than that they are building their yearly schedule around that. In order to increase their potential during period where there is not extremely important tournement. And reach their full performance level during the period of important tournements.
So there performance is going to fluctuate through out the year, in order to keep improving there potential, in an attempt to increase there futur maximum performance levels.
What it take to become the best ?
What seperate the #1 from the rest ? Clearly this is the 1 000 000 000 $ question. Because the one that are at the top have manage accross their carriere to keep improving both there performance and potential level in a study manner. Which ultimately brought them to where they are today.
Having this ability to balance both aspect better than any other player, is what seperate them from the reset. But success leave clues.
As I said performance is about consistency and confidence. And when you take a look at the best player in the world, they have pretty much the same technique for the last decade. They focus on improving very little part of there games. One part at a time. Which overtime make a big difference.
This is one way, and generaly the most common one. Because this is the emotionaly easy one. You are performing well, you change little things so your performance level doesn’t drop too much at once. And you continue that way until the end of your carriere.
But their is an other way. This one is the one that very rare people get successfull with. Not because it’s less efficient than the other. But because most people are going to give up on the way to the top.
This way is baslicaly taking as much time as you need to first reach your maximum potential. To then focusing on reaching your maximum level of performance.
This is the way I choosed to work with. Because in my mind this the way to go if i want to reach my goals and dreams. And I am willing to do what ever it take to do so, and I will never give up until I get what I want.
How to stay at the top ?
Once you have an high potential that you have unleash through performance training things can be improve using micro cycles.
Where the golfer is not going to step outside of it’s confort zone too much. That’s way he is improving is potential without causing tremendous trouble to his level of performance.
And as this process become and habit, the expansion of the confort zone as well as the potential become part of his performance process. Where he is always just a bit behind of his maximum performance level but because the potential level is continuasly increasing the maximum performance level does. Therefore the general level of performance of the player in studly increasing over the months and years.
This kind of level of performance can only be reach once you reach your maximum level of performance and completely unlock your maximum potential. And when cumulate with periodization traing can all a player to reach is maximum level of performance on a specific date, for major events for instance. But we will talk about periodization in an other post.
Conlusion
Personaly I chosed to first increase my maximum potential. Because I started golf late (at 20 years old) and given the fact that I have big dreams. I choosed to take the toughest path. But ultimately the most rewarded one.
Where my focus is to first reach my maximum potential and then focus only on reaching my maximum performance level. And even if then I will still be able to keep improving, the change I will do then will be so little that I will naturaly enter in a process of consistent study improvement, safe from any major changes. Which has caused lot of golfer big step back in their carriere (Luke Donald & Matteo Manassero just to site a few).
So in my journey, I think after 10 years of working on my potential I finaly reach my maximum. Now it’s time to focus on performance. Let’s get it!