76. Going for quick fixes gets you on board the Carousel of Quack theory where you keep going round year on year only to keep arriving back at the same place and still no better a player

Have you ever noticed how no one recognizes their golf swing when they see it for the first time on video? The image we hope to see gracing the screen like some Oscar nominated inspiring production more often than not looks like some dreadful third rate offering from Hammer horror.

Why it happens goes like this. We see good swings from all the worlds pro tours every week. We listen and watch the swing instruction from the worlds leading coaches. We then go to the range with a mental image of a good swing to apply the technical information as we are told. But the concept as seen in our mind gets cross wired in the application. We only realize this unfortunately when we are videoed. What we see and what we feel we are doing become two different things.

It takes hundreds of repetitions to “hard wire” the correct instruction into muscle memory and it feels very awkward in the process. Most players at this point go for quick fixes. Going for quick fixes gets you on board the Carousel of Quack theory where you keep going round year on year only to keep arriving back at the same place and still no better a player.   

If it were possible for players to experience Ernie Els or Vijay's swing via some fancy machine, the experience would leave them very puzzled, possibly murmuring to themselves "What the hell was that".

The bad news is that 99.9999 percent of players have faults in their swings; the good news is that you don't need a model swing to be good. If that were the case, the leading 100 players in the world would all swing identical.

So if your swing is instantly recognisable when you first see it, you are perhaps playing off scratch or plus 1. If it isn't, spend time working on the basic fundamentals and right off your prospects for playing well for the next year at least.