A motor skill is an action that involves the movement of muscles in your body.
Once you have a learned sequence of movement, it produces a smooth efficient action to achieve a given task and in golf, that task is to hit the golf ball from the middle of the club face.
When senior golfers are looking to improve their motor skills, or sequence of movement, firstly make sure you understand the actual sequence of movement of your muscles that is required. Once you have this understanding then work on learning the sequence, in the correct order slowly. For example, if you are learning how to hit a draw, set up with your feet aligned to the right of the target and the club face aimed right of the target but left of your feet alignment. Swing the club back slowly to the top of your backswing and then on your downswing, initiate this by turning your knees and then hips towards the target and then to the left of the target, as you bring the club head down to the ball from the inside of the target line. Keep the movement going and swing across the target line to the outside as the club face aims left of this direction of movement but right of the target. Then continue into a well balanced finish position.
If you understand that this is the movement sequence that is required for you to hit a draw, work on actually getting this correct at a lower speed initially. If you actually timed how long it took you to give yourself the correct instructions verbally, this is the amount of time that you need to swing the club and move correctly initially. Hit shots very slowly so that you can get the movement of muscles correct. Once you have the movement correct, now begin to slowly increase the speed of the sequence, but whilst still maintaining the correct sequence. You can monitor your progress here by using a 'speed of movement' scale. If 10 is you moving at full speed, move at a speed that has the correct sequence and give this a number. Hit balls at this speed and then increase the speed gradually, say from a 2 up to a speed of 3. Work on hitting the correct shot because your sequence of movement is still correct and then gradually increase the speed again up to a 4. Keep doing this until you reach your full speed.
The second way to improve your motor skills if you want to stay at a faster speed when you swing would be to work on improving just one movement at a time. As an example, if you require six movement sequences to hit a shot well, work on achieving the first part of the sequence initially. Once you are doing this, then add the second part of the sequence in, so you are now doing part one and two correctly.
Once you have mastered these two parts, then add part three on. Work on improving one part of the sequence at a time until you have it mastered then bolt the next part of the sequence on to this, rather than trying to alter all six parts all at once.
