Can Elite Tournament Professional Golfers Prevent Habitual Actions in Their Putting Actions?

Abstract

An experiment was designed to demonstrate the strength of habitual movements in golf putting and examined the immediate effect of instructing elite tournament professional golfers to execute a golf putt using different muscles than they normally do in order to prevent the movement of certain joints. In a study involving fifteen players on the PGA European Tour, it was found that players who usually use shoulder movement in their putting action were not able to prevent such movement when instructed to do so. Also, players who usually use wrist and hands movement in their putting action were not able to prevent such movement when instructed to do so Results were explained using notions about rigid coupling of degrees of freedom