Very nice first post Tedscott. Welcome to the forum and please continue sharing your insights. Like everyone else; throw off the hat, kick off your shoes, put the bag in the corner and make youself right at home.

Stags - You can order the book directly from The Golfing Machine at www.thegolfingmachine.com and you can view a huge amount of plane diagrams on this site, including stickman figures created by Rob Noel, one of the Professional Contributors in the Advanced TGM Section.

Bagger

Seeing that my index generally is in the 2.0 range, I think it is safe to say that I have and do work on my game very seriously. I am no Bruce Leitzke, meaning I have to work very hard to maintain my playing level.

Respectfully, I disagree with your statement that it is a "deluded or perrhaps opportunistic" student that accepts an offer of a guarantee.

And from another perspective, the plane that is quite helpful to visualize - the HANDS - the path the hands (the pressure points) travel during the motion.

THIS is why Furyk is at the top of the accuracy stats.

Watch the path of his HANDS

"my hands are never out of bounds" - Moe Norman

Only the HANDS can travel on 'one plane' back and through.

The problem is one of perspective, of how folks usually look at plane - as being tied to the shaft.

At address, imagine a line running straight down the undersides of the arms, to the ground.

Your hands, the 'tip of the triangle', can stay on "that" plane back and through.

Perspective is very often the root issue when people disagree about plane, or plane shifts. There is only one 'sum' plane of force, of motion, in an efficient swing, and that plane is most easily seen by looking to the hands.

Yet another reason the "mind is in the hands" - Ben Doyle

Damn good stuff EdZ!

And therein lies the beauty of TGM it allows a golfer to apply a set of fundamentals he or she can use reliably based on their body type of natural inclination to do certain things well physically.

It's also the biggest problem I have with most other golf swing theories. Very seldom do these theories take into the consideration a person's body type of natural attributes.

Try This...
 

Stags,
Since you said in a previous post that you can't travel to GA., try this. It's what I did pretty much all winter:

Download every single video in the Gallery. Watch them. Again, again, and again. I recommend the Collin Neeman videos, Ben Doyle's(priceless), and Yoda's Impact Bag and also Dowels and Wedges.

Next, go to the Forums. Start with The Golfing Machine- Basic. Read all the posts, and copy and paste anything that "makes sense" to you into a Word document. Then go back into the archives and do the same thing. There is brilliant stuff in there(I'm still trying to figure out when EdZ and Yoda signed their truce:D ). Then work yourself thru the rest of the site, still copying and pasting. More and more stuff will make sense to you as you go.

Now, here is one thing that won't make sense when you're starting off- the book itself. In the beginning, it is brutal. But once you figure out the Three Imperatives, Three Functions, Three Stations and the Three Essentials, and Pressure Points and Flying Wedges, you'll be on your way. It sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. When I first got the book, I defied any person I knew to make sense of any paragraph in it. Now, my book is covered in highlighter with points that impact my swing.

And yet, I'm only at the beginning of my journey...

Well said BlackjackNY, TGM in a nutshell.