Why Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

I watched one of my students hit balls on the range last week for almost an hour. He was working hard—bucket after bucket, driver after driver. His dedication was impressive. His focus was admirable.

But with every swing, he was grooving the same slice that's plagued him for years. He wasn't practicing to get better. He was practicing to get more consistent at hitting it right.

After he finished, I walked over and asked a simple question: "What were you working on out there?"

"Just trying to get some reps in, Coach. You know, practice makes perfect."

That's when I had to tell him something that might change how he thinks about practice forever: "Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent."

The Invisible Thread That Becomes a Cable

There's a powerful truth about how habits form that every golfer needs to understand. The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread—barely noticeable, easy to break. But every time we repeat an action, we strengthen that strand. We add another filament to it.

Eventually, that invisible thread becomes a great cable that binds us irrevocably in both thought and action.

This is what happens every time you hit a golf ball. You're not just practicing a swing—you're literally rewiring your brain and body. You're strengthening neural pathways. You're building muscle memory. You're making patterns permanent.

The question is: what patterns are you making permanent?

The Range Session That Revealed Everything

Let me tell you about two students I observed on the same day last month. Both practiced for roughly the same amount of time. But the quality of their practice couldn't have been more different.

The first student—let's call him the "rep collector"—was hitting balls as fast as he could reload. No routine, no target focus, no thought about what he was doing. Just swing after swing, grooving whatever pattern his body wanted to produce. Some shots went left, some went right, some were thin, some were fat. He didn't seem to notice or care. He was "getting his reps in."

The second student—the "deliberate practitioner"—hit about half as many balls. But before each shot, she went through a full routine. She picked a specific target. She took practice swings focusing on one particular feeling. She evaluated each shot and made small adjustments. When something wasn't working, she stopped, reset, and tried a different approach.

After an hour, the rep collector had reinforced whatever swing patterns he showed up with—good and bad. He'd made his inconsistency more permanent.

The deliberate practitioner had actually improved. She'd identified a timing issue in her takeaway and spent focused time grooving a better pattern. She'd made improvement permanent.

What Your Brain Is Actually Doing

Here's what most golfers don't understand about practice: your brain doesn't distinguish between good movements and bad movements. It simply records whatever you do repeatedly and makes that pattern easier to access in the future.

Every time you hit a slice, you're teaching your body that's the correct movement pattern. Every time you hit a rushed, tense putt, you're programming that as your normal putting stroke. Every time you take a fast, jerky practice swing, you're reinforcing that tempo.

Your nervous system is incredibly efficient at learning. It will gladly help you become excellent at producing the exact swing you're currently making—even if that swing doesn't produce the results you want.

This is why the phrase "practice makes perfect" is not just wrong—it's dangerous. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect.

The Three Types of Practice I See

In my years of coaching, I've observed three distinct types of practice, and only one of them actually leads to improvement:

Type 1: Mindless Repetition This is the most common type I see at every range. Golfers hitting ball after ball with no clear purpose, no target focus, no evaluation of results. They're strengthening whatever patterns they already have—reinforcing both good habits and bad ones indiscriminately.

Type 2: Mechanical Tinkering These golfers are constantly adjusting. They try one swing thought, hit a few balls, then switch to a different thought. They're always searching for the "secret" but never staying with anything long enough to make it permanent. They end up with a collection of half-learned movements and confusion.

Type 3: Deliberate Practice These golfers have a clear purpose for every session. They identify specific elements to work on. They create feedback loops to know if they're improving. They repeat correct movements enough times to make them automatic. They're intentional about what they're making permanent.

Guess which type consistently lowers their handicap?

What Perfect Practice Actually Looks Like

When I work with serious students on building perfect practice habits, here's the framework we use:

1. Define Your Purpose Before you hit a single ball, know what you're working on. Not "my swing" or "getting better," but something specific: "I'm working on maintaining my spine angle through impact" or "I'm grooving a consistent takeaway tempo."

2. Create Quality Over Quantity Twenty perfect repetitions are infinitely more valuable than two hundred mindless swings. If you can only maintain focus and form for 30 balls, stop at 30. Don't keep hitting just to empty the bucket.

3. Use a Pre-Shot Routine Every ball on the range should be hit with the same routine you use on the course. You're not just practicing your swing—you're practicing the entire process of hitting a golf shot under real conditions.

4. Get Feedback You need to know if what you're doing is correct. Use video, use impact tape, use a launch monitor, or work with a coach. Don't just trust your feel, especially early in the learning process. Your feel is what created your current swing.

5. Rest Between Shots Your brain needs time to process and encode new patterns. Hitting balls as fast as you can reload doesn't allow for consolidation. Take your time. Let the learning sink in.

6. Evaluate and Adjust After each shot, ask yourself: "Did that feel like what I was working on?" If yes, try to replicate it. If no, figure out what was different and adjust.

The Student Who Changed His Practice

One of my favourite success stories involves a student who came to me as a frustrated 18-handicap. He practiced religiously—three times a week, large buckets every time. But he wasn't improving.

I watched one of his practice sessions and immediately saw the problem. He was an expert at practicing his slice. Every rep made his over-the-top move more ingrained.

We made a simple change: I limited him to 30 balls per session, and every single ball had to be hit with complete focus on one specific feeling—keeping the club more inside on the downswing.

For the first week, it felt impossibly slow. He was used to the instant gratification of hitting ball after ball. Now he was thinking, feeling, adjusting, and only then hitting.

But here's what happened: that new pattern started to take hold. The invisible thread was becoming a strand. After two weeks of perfect practice, his slice was noticeably better. After a month, it was gone and he was hitting soft draws. After two months, he'd dropped five strokes off his handicap.

He didn't practice more. He practiced better. He made the right things permanent instead of making everything permanent.

The Warning About Muscle Memory

Here's something crucial to understand: muscle memory is real, but it's morally neutral. Your muscles will memorise whatever you teach them.

If you practice with poor fundamentals, you'll develop muscle memory for poor fundamentals. If you practice with tension in your grip, you'll develop muscle memory for tension. If you practice with rushed tempo, you'll develop muscle memory for rushed tempo.

This is why working with a coach early in your development is so valuable. It's infinitely easier to build correct patterns from the beginning than to try to overwrite ingrained incorrect patterns later.

But even if you've been playing for years with established habits, understand this: you can still create new cables. It just requires intentional, focused work on building the right patterns while consciously not reinforcing the old ones.

Your Practice Revolution

Here's my challenge: for the next month, cut your practice volume in half but double your practice quality.

Instead of hitting 100 balls mindlessly, hit 50 with complete focus and intention. Before each shot:

• Choose a specific target

• Identify one feeling or thought to focus on

• Go through your full pre-shot routine

• Evaluate the result honestly

• Make small adjustments as needed

Track not how many balls you hit, but how many quality repetitions you complete. A quality repetition means you executed with full focus on the correct movement pattern.

You'll probably hit fewer balls than you're used to. You might feel like you're not "working hard enough." Ignore that feeling. You're not trying to work hard—you're trying to work smart.

The Long-Term View

Remember: every swing you make is a vote for the golfer you're becoming. Enough votes in one direction, and that's who you are.

The invisible thread of a new habit becomes stronger with each repetition. But only if those repetitions are correct. There's no value in adding filaments to a cable that's pulling you in the wrong direction.

The golfers who improve year after year aren't necessarily the ones who practice the most. They're the ones who practice with the most purpose. They understand that their time on the range isn't just about getting reps—it's about building the right patterns into permanent pathways.

Don't practice until you get it right. Practice until you can't get it wrong. But make sure you're practicing the right thing, because whatever you practice will become permanent.

Think About This

What patterns are you currently making permanent in your practice sessions? If you continue practicing the way you're practicing now for another year, will you become the golfer you want to be, or will you simply become more consistent at the game you're currently playing?

Until next time, less swing thoughts, more great shots!

Owen.