Simplifying golf

Ok, so we all want a better golf swing. That's fine. But here's what needs to happen to make it effective.

For all motor skills to be properly executed, there must be little thought about "how" and more thought of just doing it. When you throw a ball, what are you thinking about? Your elbow or your wrist? No. You're thinking about throwing the ball towards the target. And I bet you can throw perfectly fine. So the golf swing, once you have the basics down, you should make it automatic. It shouldn't be consciously controlled. Just swing and hit. It really is that simple.

Well better swings are naturally less thinking and more doing.

But your idea already has a thread!

http://thesandtrap.com/t/67401/the-virtue-of-being-a-stupid-monkey-and-how-it-can-help-your-golf-game

Be the Stupid Monkey!

Sure, because you and me are relatively mediocre at throwing a ball, and have come to expect relative mediocrity. If you're a MLB pitcher or a quarterback, you're practicing mechanics a good deal of the time. None of them just knew how to throw a slider, they all spent time practicing it.

Hmmm. Some people can't throw hard enough to break an egg on a wall and others would miss the wall entirely.

I suppose you are right. I could just accept my natural shot shape and tendencies and the scoring limitations they carry with them and just GO PLAY! There is certainly a value in that if you can find enjoyment in it and in all honesty that is how I played the sport for a long time. Eventually I got tired of playing a slice and always aiming to the left and taking whatever I could get from the results. I actually really enjoyed playing that way too, but I eventually decided it was time to put some real work into learning the proper mechanics and working towards having some control over my game. I hasn't really shown up much in my scores but it has shown up a little and I'm pretty confident that I'm inching towards a breakthrough that I would never attain through self teaching/hacking around. I also have heard it said that the last place improvement shows up is on the scorecard.

In any case, to each his own. You would probably love the teachings of Ernest Jones and Manuel de la Torre . Probably right up your alley. In fact I have a copy of de le Torre's book, if you pay the shipping I'll mail it to you.

Yep it is pretty much seeing that one extra shot every round that is closer and closer to how you want it.

Sure you can throw it fine with just relative accuracy, not a lot of precision and still hit the strike zone from 60' and not have to think about it much.  That same variant percentage from 250 yards is a much different story.  You cannot compare the two effectively IMO.

Off topic a bit but, a bad shoulder cost me a potential HOF pitching/center fielding career but that is another story...

So just learn the basics, become mindless, and boom, it is that simple?  We should not work to build a repeatable swing that can produce the highest amount of precision and accuracy and make that automatic?