Golf swing technician Jim Christine: Bridging the gap between the science of the golf swing and the art of golf coaching: A Commentary

The stimulus article, “Golf swing technician Jim Christine: Bridging the gap between the science of the golf swing and the art of golf coaching”, and the accompanying commentaries present some key issues in golf coaching, especially coach development, technology, coaching methods, and critical thinking.
The first two commentaries provide insight about Jim Christine’s development as a coach. International golf coach Peter Green discusses the legendary John Jacobs, who Jim accepted an invitation from to shadow him at one of his golf schools; and John Stirling, who Jim had coaching from on his own golf game. PGA Master Professional Luther Blacklock discusses Alex Hay, who also coached Jim. Both Stirling and Hay were pioneers in the training programme of the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) of Great Britain and Ireland in which Jim became highly influential as an author of training resources and as a tutor.
There are commentaries from three distinguished members of the PGA of America, the world’s largest working sports organisation: David Wright, John Callahan and Eric Alpenfels. John Callahan shares how he took up opportunities to shadow leading golf coaches such as TJ Tomasi, Craig Shankland and Paul Runyan during his PGA apprenticeship under Frank Cardi. Callahan advocates the use of launch monitors as a technological aid, more staunchly so than Jim Christine who is aware of the limitations in the algorithms involved in providing the output from a radar device like TrackMan for measuring impact factors. Chris Bertram refers to his own empirical research on the use of another technological aid, video feedback, to indicate that “just because technical information is readily available, it does not mean that more information is necessarily serving the interests of the student” (p. 37). Drawing on his doctoral research on operant conditioning, David Wright discusses backward chaining, which is one of the coaching methods used by Jim Christine. Eric Alpenfels discusses Jim’s use of coaching methods in terms of “focus of attention – internal/external swing cues” (p. 33). Researchers Thomas Hawkins et al., suggest that “[the clock analogy], one of Christine’s favoured coaching tools may result in performance and learning benefits [through external focus of attention] because it allows the body to organise movement better than it would if conscious control was either requested or triggered by an internally focused coaching instruction” (p. 35). In a similar vein, Nicky Lumb, a PGA coach “who specialises in golf practice management, skill development and peak performance” (p. 40), indicates that several of Jim’s coaching tools give the golfer an external focus of attention. There is overlap in what Nicky does with Edward Coughlan, a sports scientist whose “main job for players involves asking questions about how they practice, what they practice and inevitably, whether their practice transfers to the competition arena” (p. 42).
While two PGA of Great Britain and Ireland professionals, Will Shaw and Gordon Morrison discuss some of Jim’s coaching methods from an Information-Processing perspective, a third one – Noel Rousseau – advocates an Ecological Dynamics/Constraints-led Approach. Rousseau presents the case that “Jim’s coaching methods are staunchly embedded in the Information Processing camp yet he simultaneously highlights some of the shortcoming of coaching this way” (p. 50), especially on the matter of sloping lies (p. 51).
Jim describes himself as a “swing technician” (p. 17). Researchers Liam Thomas et al. discuss the notion of a ‘model golf swing’ or ‘technical blue print’ and highlight the challenge of distinguishing between ‘technical faults’ and “the inherent variability both within and between individuals in response to changes in constraints” (p. 54). Tour pro coach, Hugh Marr argues, “Every coach has a picture in their head of what a great swing looks like. It’s not the model that makes coaches great, it’s the understanding of what George Gankas calls ‘match-ups’ – if a player displays one particular swing characteristic, they need to match it with another swing characteristic that complements it” (p. 57).
The final two commentaries, by research professor David Grecic and performance coach Jon Roy, both emphasize the development of critical thinking in coaches, with the latter arguing that “Jim’s critical faculties comprise dialectics, scepticism, and innovation” (p. 63).