50. A great looking body action with poor hand action cannot play good golf but "Educated hands" with a limited, or eccentric body action can play stunning golf

If you were to stand on a practice ground at any top tournament, any where in the world, you would witness a similarity in the swings of most of the players from the well known to the unknown. Most of these actions would ooze smooth, coordinated, rhythmical simplicity resulting in great visual pleasure and great shots. Then suddenly, your attention is caught by someone who stands out like a sore thumb. It is highly probable you will be looking at a player who the worlds leading Coaching "Gurus" give a wide berth to, contradicts the technical swing manual because he has more movements than a Swiss watch yet makes a VERY tidy living from his profession as a successful tour pro. His name could be Mark James, Jim Furyk, Eamon Darcy, Ray Floyd, Lee Trevino, Kenny Perry..... the list could go on. These players are in a minority compared to their cosmetically better swinging fellow competitors yet all however are extremely effective.

How can it be that these two groups of players, though technically very different, can produce identical shot characteristics? If you had a technically near" Perfect" swinger like Frank Nobilo or Steve Elkington and put him alongside Jim Furyk, Ray Floyd or Mark James and asked them to play a repertoire of shots from a high draw to a low fade, you would never be able to tell by watching the ball if the "Perfect" swinger or the "Eccentric" swinger was hitting the stated shot. 

By looking at the player swing, you can identify who it is but by looking at the ball, well, a low fade hit by Furyk would look the same as a low fade hit by Elkington. So if two vastly differing swings can produce identical shots when asked, it means that there must be a common denominator that is at the center of things because there is only one set of physics that apply to flying a golf ball.

So what is it that they all do that makes things work and enables the Furyk's Floyd's and James's of this world compete at a world level alongside their more cosmetically correct counterparts. The thing that they all do and do very well is actually two things. 1. They all get into the right body position for impact
2. Make the most of this "right" position by putting the club head through the ball with correct use of their hand action.

The Text book swinger’s actions do not require hardly any corrective movements in mid swing in order for them to put the club on the ball as they never come out of "position". The Eccentric swingers however appear to be all over the place but instinctive corrective movements in mid swing enables them to arrive at the same destination but via a more complicated route. This corrective posturing once moved David Feherty to describe Jim Furyks swing as "Looking like an octopus falling out of a tree".

Studying freeze frame video of all of these players would reveal identical positions both just before and at impact and Furyk most certainly would not look like an octopus. However he may thankful to have 8 arms to help him carry his tour winnings home. Many club players get a lot of the swing right but fail in the most important bit of all. It is okay getting into the right body positions but if the hands do not know how to finish the job by putting the club to the ball correctly what good is that. The hands are the only link with the club and in most cases, are the weak link in the action. If you get the hands working right, you have every chance of achieving your golfing dreams