I hold out hope that there _is_ a way to circumvent human fallibility, to some degree, without spending eons "digging it out of the dirt."

But it is only hope...you may be correct.

Thanks for reading the piece and adding thoughtful comments.

Best Wishes--

JP Bouffard

While the author equates a human swinging a club to a machine, humans are eminently fallible, and will never have a good, repeatable swing unless they are taught and then practice, practice, practice.

Also there are plenty of places to get practice routines - Golf Magazine is filled with them every month. The problem is devoting time to these routines.

The author says, "You just have to be able to control the ball, which is accomplished by repeating a swing and trusting it." What I have come to accept this summer is that I will not get a repeatable good swing unless I practice; and I am not willing to devote the hours to practice. So I play with the game that I brought with me to the course. If you do that, and can hit the ball out of your shadow, you will beat 90% of the amateurs out there.

So I have to disagree with the author. This is not a weakness in how we are instructed, instead it is a weakness in the golfer. There is no short cut to improving your game – it takes time in the dirt to do that, and while instructors can give you lesson plans, they cannot practice for you.

That's a great story, and encouraging.

Jack Nicklaus has said as much, saying he knows many recreational golfers who, if they just stuck with one method and continued to practice it, would improve much more than going from swing to swing.

My point about the whole matter is that I wish there could be a way to distill any individual's natural motion to some set of essential elements--call them mechanics, that's fine, but the point is they are simple, individual elements that a person already does in his existing swing. The teacher then devises a way for the person to practice repeating these key elements.

I don't mean this in a casual way, either. I think there should be a science to it, a studying of the thing. What moves, what biomechanical elements, are the ones that trigger the repeating motion? How can you accelerate the process of ingraining a movement, so that you don't have to repeat it 3000 times? Maybe it's possible to do it in 500, if you're concentrating on the proper things.

It's all just speculation, but all I know is that if they taught sex like they teach golf, the human race would be extinct by now. There must be a better way.

One thing that will improve anybody's game is sound fundamentals, which should be the first thing a good teaher works on. A good athletic setup with a proper grip is the foundation of the swing. That is one thing that I learnt from my earliest lessons years ago and has remained the same throughout. If you have good grip and setup fundamentals, it will help you no matter how you swing it. The technical stuff they try to change like takeaway, backswing etc can ruin a natural swing, but solid fundamentals will always feel and perform better.

I was one of those guys who took up golf at 35 years of age, bought some clubs, never took a lesson, and then struggled for fifteen years to reach an average of 95-100. To say the least, I had one of the most unconventional swing setups, all to compensate for a wicked slice. I finally surrendered to the fact that my game was never going to improve if I didn't take a lesson.

What I was fortunate enough to find was an instructor (Mark Nigro - Nigro's Golf Academy, Kansas City, MO) who first utilized a computerized video imaging analysis of my swing after hitting several balls into an indoor net; he then compared it to a pro's swing that best suited my swing characteristics. Then he assisted me in making some initially "ackward" adjustments (grip, setup, swing path, shoulder turn, wrist flip) to my swing that solved the basic errors in the mechanics. All of this was done in less than twenty minutes inside the training center. The results were short of miraculous!

When he took me outside, I was instructed to hit my 6 Iron - a club I previously detested because of my inability to hit it with any degree of success more than 10% of the time. Viola! I was hitting the ball straight as a string an average of 55-60 yards shot after shot after shot. He even had me hooking and drawing the ball - something I had NEVER done in my life. I was even hitting a driver for the first time in my life. WOW!

NOW FOR THE DOWNSIDE. Mark informed me that it would take at least 3000 (yes, count them) swings before the muscle memory would "set in". His mantra? PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE (Tiger practices an average of 8 hours a day). Have I listened? NO! I am hitting the ball like I never have before, but the consistency is lacking and I am still very frustrated at times. Why? Because I know if I practiced, I would be much better.

The Moral: Take a lesson and then PRACTICE until it is second nature.

Nuf said?

Stick to what you know and what works for you. It doesnt get any better than that.

Just wondering if the "Medicus" or "medicus-like" clubs would be a tool that would actually help with repetition and adapting your personal swing into a reliable personal swing.

But again, great write up!