Dr. B Navaneethan
This article examines the question of whether golfers with little playing experience benefit from employing a performance routine prior to playing shots? The intervention strategies involved a physical skills practice and cognitive-behavioural routine program, as well as a physical skills practice only program. Performance was measured on a pre-intervention test, post-intervention test, and following a period of time without treatment, and involved golf wedge shots being played from distances of 40, 50, and 60 metres from a target. Participants in this study (N=66) were assigned to either a golfer or non-golfer group. Participants in the treatment groups attended two practice sessions per week during the acquisition phase. Non-golfers in both intervention groups improved performance following the acquisition phase and maintained these levels of performance in the retention test. Greater improvements in performance were found in the non-golfer physical skills practice and cognitive-behavioural routine group. The non-golfer physical skills practice and cognitive-behavioural routine group was the only group to realize significant improvements in wedge-shot accuracy when comparing initial test performance measures to post-intervention and retention test performance measures across all test distances. Although the golfer treatment groups had consistent improvement in performance measures following the intervention phase, these improvements did not reach statistical significance in the majority of cases.
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