Developing the Interdisciplinary Scope of Golf Strength and Conditioning Coaching: Learning from Practitioners’ Conceptualization and Use of Athletes’ Errors

Interdisciplinarity, characterized by the cohesive integration of knowledge across disciplines, is increasingly recognized as a feature of expert sports coaching practice. Concurrently, the importance of coaches’ decision-making regarding the role and use of athletes’ errors during training has been emphasized from an increasingly interdisciplinary perspective. This study aimed to address the gap between current conceptualizations of effective training design and real-world application by seeking to (a) explore the current application of interdisciplinary knowledge and practice within golf strength and conditioning (S&C) support; (b) examine S&C coaches’ conceptualization of errors made by athletes in the golf S&C environment; (c) understand the role of golf S&C coaches in athlete development. This study used semi-structured interviews to explore eight golf S&C coaches’ (male = 7, female = 1, Mage = 37.8 ± 9.2 years, Mexperience = 9.3 ± 2.6 years) perspectives on and experiences of athletes’ errors and interdisciplinary integration. The data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings revealed that interdisciplinary knowledge integration is infrequent in golf S&C coaching despite practitioners’ recognition of the potential benefits for coaches and athletes. This lack of collaboration and knowledge across coaching domains is exemplified through practitioners’ simplistic conceptualization of athletes’ errors and narrow working scope regarding athlete support. In summary, the findings indicate a clear need for development within golf regarding interdisciplinary knowledge and practice pertaining to support provision. Specifically, encouraging a more developed conceptualization of athletes’ errors in alignment with advances in coaching science would be beneficial. Recommendations are made to support the integration of S&C knowledge across golf coaching domains and stress the importance of developing golf S&C practitioners’ psychosocial competencies during accreditation and professional development.