Hurt, Scott, and McCroskey (1978) observed that the difference between knowing and teaching is communication. Instructional communication researcher supports this claim with classroom studies, which show that the instructional process can be conceptualized from a communication perspective (Chesebro & McCroskey, 2002). The purpose of the present study was to adopt this perspective and compare how expert and novice teachers communicate in a sport instruction context. Four expert and four novice golf instructors, as well as eight students, were selected for participation. Experts and novices were identified using Berliner's (1994) developmental framework of teacher expertise. Experts were experienced, award-winning, certified golf instructors and novices were beginning physical education teachers, who had received some formal training in golf but had never previously taught golf. Students were volunteers, including three women and five men who varied in age (19-42) and skill-level. University IRB-approved informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to collecting data. Data for this study were collected as part of a larger investigation of expert and novice golf instructors' instructional communication. Instructors were each videotaped teaching a golf lesson (approximately 45 minutes) on the full swing to a student. Lessons were given at two driving ranges on golf courses in Orlando, Florida and at the researcher's university golf course driving range. The videotapes, in addition to semi-structured interviews with the instructors and the students, were analyzed using an inductive-deductive approach. Themes in the instructors' behaviors were derived from the data and organized according to a framework of teacher communication constructs. In addition, frequency counts of the instructors' communication behaviors were conducted. Trustworthiness was attained through data triangulation and member checks. Findings indicated that experts used a wider variety of communication behaviors than novices (177 versus 65, respectively) in terms of clarity, immediacy, style, content relevance, and listening. Themes in the experts' communication behaviors differed from themes in the novices' behaviors most fundamentally in the tendency of the experts to communicate more personally with their students than the novices. Experts essentially (a) listened more and with greater instructional purpose than novices, (b) delivered the lesson content in a manner matching the student's communicative orientations, (c) and communicated in terms the students could easily understand, relate to, and retain as their own. The study accentuates the importance of listening in expert teaching, particularly for teachers working with only one student at a time and potentially for any teacher seeking to individualize instruction. Keyword(s): coaching, sport topics