Skill work vs Technique work

[MPStrat]

The skill stuff was always intuitive to me. Technique was usually the gatekeeper. 
 

I’m not making the assumption that the skill stuff is intuitive to everyone, and for those, it must be part of the equation. 

 

I also believe this is a bit of a different conversation depending on the player. A beginner high handicap might need a lot more skill work than a single digit who has grown up playing many ball and stick sports. 

 

I’ll give one small example using short game..

 

I had heard good players talk about hitting different shots around the green the same way we would in tennis. At a basic level, controlling the clubface to do things like adding loft, adding spin, reducing loft, and reducing spin for the desired shot. I understood how to execute each of these and knew exactly what I wanted the golf club to do, the problem was the ball never really behaved properly or responded how I intended because I had some basic technical flaws with my motion. Once I improved my technique I could manipulate the clubface to do anything I wanted around the green. It was immediate. 
 

It’s an interesting conversation. 
 

 

[MPStrat]

9 hours ago, SNIPERBBB said:

You can have horrible technique and be really skilled at it. I've played with some guys that if you look at their swings, it looks like they should never make contact with the ball yet they are quite proficient with it.  

Sometimes “horrible technique” is a bit subjective. I’ve never seen a good player (I’m talking scratch or better) where in hindsight I couldn’t make sense of why their unorthodox motion works. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it has to match.

Edited July 9, 2023 by MPStrat

[phizzy30]

6 hours ago, MPStrat said:

Sometimes “horrible technique” is a bit subjective. I’ve never seen a good player (I’m talking scratch or better) where in hindsight I couldn’t make sense of why their unorthodox motion works. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it has to match.

Subjective indeed.  Jim Furyk has the most unorthodox swing but he's a multiple time winner on tour. 

[Kuuuch]

8 hours ago, MPStrat said:

The skill stuff was always intuitive to me. Technique was usually the gatekeeper. 
 

I’m not making the assumption that the skill stuff is intuitive to everyone, and for those, it must be part of the equation. 

 

I also believe this is a bit of a different conversation depending on the player. A beginner high handicap might need a lot more skill work than a single digit who has grown up playing many ball and stick sports. 

 

I’ll give one small example using short game..

 

I had heard good players talk about hitting different shots around the green the same way we would in tennis. At a basic level, controlling the clubface to do things like adding loft, adding spin, reducing loft, and reducing spin for the desired shot. I understood how to execute each of these and knew exactly what I wanted the golf club to do, the problem was the ball never really behaved properly or responded how I intended because I had some basic technical flaws with my motion. Once I improved my technique I could manipulate the clubface to do anything I wanted around the green. It was immediate. 
 

It’s an interesting conversation. 
 

 

Great post. I learned to chip in a very similar fashion and it’s always been one of the best parts of my game. Learned technique first then my grandpa had me use 1 wedge of my choice (favorite wedge which was 54 and still is - hit 98% of chip shots with it) to hit every pitch shot under the sun and he’d throw the ball down each time to a different lie. The different lie piece was huge because it taught me how to hit different shots based on different lies by altering the clubface and adding/removing shaft lean. 
 

To the OP, biggest thing I’d say in regards to skill work is way too many amateurs practice and play with preferred lies. Working the ball is overrated imo but skill is improved when you learn how to hit off different lies. 

[bortass]

Both are important. I think it comes down to ROI. All of us are different and what we will get the biggest improvement from for the time spent will vary. It may be skill, it may be technique. Technique versus skill isn't black or white. It's gray for most people. Working on one or both, will likely help a person. There may be one that would be more efficient in driving improvement but that doesn't mean working on the counterpart is bad.

 

This may be the wrong way to look at it but technique feels like it's what sets the macro floor/ceiling of our ability to play the game. There's a range of possible performance I am capable of based on technique. Skill will let me squeeze as much blood out of that rock as possible. The more skill I have, the more I can get out of my technique. This aligns with what Monte has said about how certain pros are successful even with the weird things they do in a full swing and how they would likely be even better with a more normal swing. 

 

Where things can get interesting, at least for me, is deciding how much focus to apply to skill and/or technique. Monte pointed out a major flaw in my swing that I was clueless about which has been holding me back. This is technique and it's made a radical change in what I can do on the course. I now have the potential to play much better. My focus has been on the specific technique and will be for the foreseeable future. I do think that improving my skills would help though. It would likely cut down the variance between good and bad rounds. But I have to figure out when to take time away from the technique work to do so and for me, that's not an obvious decision. Though skill work could help avoid burnout which is a merit unto itself.