James Oliver

Teaching Philosophy

My approach to golf could be described fairly well with one adjective: exploratory. I am heavily influenced by the work of Adam Young, Rob Gray, Fred Shoemaker, Kendal McWade, Karl Morris, Mark Broadie, and many others on the more cerebral side of the golf landscape. The way a human being learns to operate in the world most efficiently is by making use of the capacties the world affords him and coordinating to that affordance. Generally, we do not make our task conform to our movement: our movement conforms to the task and its demands. Golf is largely taught the other way around. This is not an impossible way to learn, but it is sub-optimal. You did not learn to walk by focusing on the positions of your feet, ankles, knees, hips. Instead, your feet, ankles, knees, hips, acquired the capacity to walk through engagement with the world around them. It would be possible to learn things the other way, but it was far superior to learn the way you did. Golf is largely conceptualied differently, and I am seeking to change that. Gof is a game of error reduction. Errors are largely the result of poor impact. The most important impact factors are strike and face orientation. Thus: golf is a game of strike and face control. The question, then, is how does one improve these factors? The first part of the answer is: by focusing on them directly. The more important part of the answer is: by organising our direct focus on imapct in such a way as to harness our innate and miraculous capactiy for movement acquisition. Put another way: we do our best to learn to play golf the way we have learned to do almost everything else in our lives. Through limitless and joyful exploration.