Intro
When I was working with Lawrence Auer as my golf coach at Azalea City Golf Cours, my wife was finishing grad school at the University of South Alabama. One of her classmates had a boyfriend named Matt who I became friends with. Matt was an incredible drummer — not just good, but exceptionally good. He played in a well-known band in Mobile, Alabama at the time.
One night we were all hanging out playing Rock Band. Matt was on the drum kit and getting 100% on every song. What made it even more impressive was that the TV screen was black. No visuals. Just audio. He didn’t need to see anything — his body simply knew what to do.
A few nights later, we were having a cookout by our apartment pool. Like most guys our age, we were deep into 90s grunge and early 2000s rock. I finally asked him, “How did you get so good at the drums?”
Matt told me he had read a book written by a famous drummer. This was over 20 years ago, so I can’t remember the drummer or the book, but I remember the explanation clearly. The drummer in the book had started seeing a psychiatrist to become a better musician. One exercise the psychiatrist recommended was to take a difficult piece of music and try to play it right before going to bed — not to perfect it, just to attempt it.
Matt adopted that idea. Every night before bed, he’d try to play a new complicated piece of music. He noticed something strange: each night, he could play a little more of the song than the night before. Night after night, the progress continued until eventually he could play the entire piece perfectly.
The explanation was that the brain continued working on the skill overnight.
I was skeptical — but that very night, I applied the same approach to my golf practice. I was in the middle of swing changes with Lawrence, and instead of grinding endlessly, I rehearsed what we were working on right before bed.
The results were undeniable. I started getting better faster, and it felt almost effortless. Practice became fun. At the time, I didn’t realize what was happening, but I was unknowingly changing my neurological system.
Fast forward to today, and there is extensive research confirming exactly what Matt described.
Movement Is a Neurological Process — Not a Muscular One
Most golfers think swing changes are about muscles: strengthening them, stretching them, or forcing them into new positions. In reality, movement originates in the nervous system, not the muscles.
Muscles do not decide when or how to move. They respond to electrical signals sent from the brain. Those signals are organized, timed, and refined through a highly complex system involving the brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, and sensory receptors throughout the body.
If you want to change a golf swing, you must first understand how this system works.
How the Brain Sends Movement Signals to the Body
Every voluntary movement begins with intent. That intent is formed in higher brain regions responsible for planning and decision-making. From there, the plan is translated into a motor command in the primary motor cortex.
The primary motor cortex sends signals down the corticospinal tract, a major neural highway that travels through the brainstem and spinal cord. These signals eventually reach lower motor neurons, which exit the spinal cord and connect directly to muscle fibers.
At the point where a nerve meets a muscle — the neuromuscular junction — an electrical signal triggers a chemical reaction that causes the muscle to contract.
This entire sequence happens in fractions of a second. Importantly, the muscles are not being told where to go. They are being activated based on a coordinated neural pattern created by the brain.
Movement Is a Two-Way Conversation: Sensory Feedback to the Brain
Just as important as sending signals to the muscles is the information coming back to the brain.
Your body is filled with sensory receptors that constantly report what is happening during movement. These include:
- Muscle spindles, which detect changes in muscle length and speed
- Golgi tendon organs, which detect tension and force
- Joint and skin receptors, which provide information about position and pressure
- This sensory information travels back through the spinal cord to the brain in real time. The nervous system uses this feedback to adjust force, timing, and coordination during the swing.
In golf, this feedback loop is critical. The brain is constantly comparing what it expected to happen with what actually happened.
Internal Models: Why the Brain Predicts Movement Outcomes
One of the most important discoveries in motor learning research is that the brain does not wait for feedback before making corrections. Instead, it uses internal models — neural predictions of how a movement should feel and unfold.
This is called feedforward control.
The brain predicts the sensory outcome of a movement before it happens. If the prediction and the actual feedback don’t match, the system adapts over time. This is how coordination improves without conscious effort.
In the golf swing, this explains why changes often feel wrong even when they are technically better. The brain is comparing the new pattern to an old internal model that has been reinforced for years.
The role of the Cerebellum and Basal Ganglia
The cerebellum plays a major role in refining movement by comparing intended motion with actual outcome. It helps reduce errors and smooth out timing.
The basal ganglia are heavily involved in habit formation and movement selection. As a movement becomes more automatic, control shifts away from conscious processing and into these deeper brain structures.
This shift is essential for performing under pressure — and it only happens through proper neurological adaptation, not forced mechanical repetition.
Neuroplasticity: How Movement Patterns Change Over Time
The nervous system is adaptable. This adaptability is known as neuroplasticity. When a movement pattern is practiced with consistency and intention, the connections between neurons become stronger and more efficient. Over time, these pathways become insulated with myelin, allowing signals to travel faster and with less effort. This is why experienced players move more efficiently — not because they are thinking more, but because their nervous system has optimized the pattern. Crucially, neuroplastic change takes time and is heavily influenced by:
- Quality of repetition
- Sensory clarity
- Variability and exploration
- Rest and sleep
- This is why practicing right before sleep — as Matt described — can accelerate learning. Sleep plays a key role in motor memory consolidation, where newly learned patterns are stabilized and strengthened.
Why Forcing Swing Changes Doesn’t Work
When golfers try to force mechanical changes, they often overload the system:
- Too many conscious thoughts
- Too much speed too early
- Too little sensory awareness
- This creates conflict between old and new neural patterns. The brain resists change not because it is stubborn, but because it is protecting stability.
Effective swing changes respect the nervous system. They provide clear input, manageable challenge, and time for adaptation.
How This Shapes My Teaching Philosophy
My approach to swing changes is neurological first, mechanical second.
I focus on:
- Teaching the nervous system new movement solutions
- Using feedback to guide adaptation
- Allowing patterns to emerge rather than be forced
- Structuring practice to align with how the brain actually learns
Many of my students are unknowingly doing what I learned 20 years ago — allowing their nervous system to do the heavy lifting.The goal isn’t to fight your swing.
The goal is to retrain the system that controls it.
Final Takeaway
Great golf swings aren’t built by forcing positions. They’re built by rewiring movement patterns. When you understand how the brain, nerves, and muscles communicate — and how those patterns evolve over time — improvement becomes more efficient, more durable, and far more enjoyable. Science now confirms what a drummer figured out years ago: The brain learns best when you work with it — not against it.
References
- Kandel, E. R., et al. (2021). Principles of Neural Science. McGraw-Hill.
- Schmidt, R. A., & Lee, T. D. (2019). Motor Learning and Performance. Human Kinetics
- Wolpert, D. M., Diedrichsen, J., & Flanagan, J. R. (2011). Principles of sensorimotor learning. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 12(12), 739–751.
- Walker, M. P., & Stickgold, R. (2004). Sleep-dependent learning and memory consolidation. Neuron, 44(1), 121–133.
- Shumway-Cook, A., & Woollacott, M. (2017). Motor Control: Translating Research into Clinical Practice. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.