What Can a Speed Skater Teach Us About Golf Practice?

Unless you are are super into the Olympics, and long-distance speed skating, and have a great memory, you probably haven’t heard of Nils van der Poel.

In 2022 he dominated the long distance speed skating events at the 2022 Beijing Olympics setting Olympic and World Records on the way to winning gold.

What’s most interesting to me about Nils isn’t the end result, it’s how he got there. Unlike most high-level performers, he open-sourced his training program upon completion of the Olympics. It’s a fascinating read.

What, if anything, can it teach us about effective golf practice?

Van der Poel’s insight – the key idea in his training – is that, in his words, you will become good at whatever it is that you train. He goes on to consider the opportunity cost of various training modalities, writing that for him, time spent weight training is wasteful, because it’s time not the most efficient or effective way to build his aerobic capacity. (And of course long-distance speed skating is above all a demanding aerobic activity.)

Applying this idea to golf, it would seem that if our primary goal is to score lower on the course, then the best way to do that is to spend as much time as you can on the course.

I’m guessing for most people, myself certainly included, this is challenging. Playing a complete round of golf takes 4 hours or more on average. Greens fees can be expensive. For time, money, proximity, you may not have easy access to play every day, every week, or even every month. Against these constraints, what’s the best substitute?

I think what van der Poel would say is that if you go the driving range and hit a bucket of 8-irons, you’ll get better, at least on that day, at hitting 8-irons. If you hit a bucket of drivers, then by the end of the bucket you’ll probably have improved at dialing in your driver. But I would argue that training this way comes at the expense of training what it is actually like to play golf, where each shot you have a different club in your hand, with different conditions, requirements, goals, hazards, and more.

So the best substitute of actually being on the course is simulating what it’s like to play on the course. Every shot you’re using a different club, with a different target. You’re simulating the pre-shot routine you use on the course. You’re simulating cover numbers and approaching each shot with the best place to miss in mind.

It might feel tedious to practice this way on the driving range. But I’m very confident that doing so will help you get better where and when it matters: on the course.