[mrose]

objective mechanics cannot be overlooked or avoided. i agree on that point. but i think a great way to play golf is pretty much trial and error as long as you're astute enough to recognise the things that really matter when they come your way.

i only stumbled across TGM a few months ago. rather than feeling annoyed that i didn't have access to all this great information back when i took up this great game, i'm actually grateful for all the faults and flaws i've dealt with along the way. i live in the smallest and furthest south island state 'down under' and so my golf journey really has been a blind struggle. there has never been a professional in our state that i, or any other good player, would really believe in to advance our games. a good coach is a plane (airplane not swing plane) flight away. whenever i approach these 'professionals' with anything to discuss on the golf swing they would basically laugh it off and tell me i'm overcomplicating things. it's little wonder these guys all had scoring averages in the high 70s for their annual club pro tour.

finding this online community has been a wonderful thing. finally realising that being analytical is not such a bad thing.

one of the major discoveries I made on the golf swing was on the practice fairway prior to quarter finals of club championships about 8 years ago. i was losing it left and on the range i just starting hitting a few with my sole swing thought being to leave the club behind on the downswing. i had always known to swing from the ground up but with this sole focus on the clubhead i started using my backswing to increase the amount that i could stress the shaft coming down. anyway, in that day's match i won 7 and 6 and finished the match off by hitting a bullet fade over the water (runs all the way down the left of the hole) with driver and drifting it back a few metres from the water on a hole where normally i'd only dare to hit 3 iron and bail out to the right. this was a stupid shot but i was testing my newfound LAG PRESSURE.

the other revelation i had around that time was swinging left after impact properly. i had been guilty of paying too much respect to the good players i had spoken to in the past. at my club there is a man who played for australia on many occasions and even held the course record at st andrews. his family won lotto and used it to fund their boy's trip with the australian team. he's in his 70s now and so had very old swing ideas. his main thoughts were to use the legs and swing out to the right. he was an amazing ballstriker (and still is!) but i think he's one of those guys that don't actually do what they say they do. i'd say he did swing out to the right but maybe without breaking his plane line (ie he had the out part of downwards, outwards and forwards but then went inwards). he grew up in the 40s and 50s with his dad the local pro and they had a swing sequence of byron nelson above the fire place. anyway, now i don't swing to the right anymore. i discovered swinging along a STRAIGHT PLANE LINE.

then recently i discovered that it wasn't essential to keep the left arm glued to the chest ala my idol curtis strange and faldo etc. i found that it was ok to let my left arm separate and so now i can get into the straight arms position and retain my FLAT LEFT WRIST.

what i'm trying to say in relation to hogan's secret is that we all have our flaws and then we all have our moments of inner jubilation, our own secrets. i think it's better to go wrong and then work out why it's going wrong than to simply do it right. it's not always going to work out right so when it falls apart a bit it's great to have a few memories to draw upon. having tried out so many different ways to swing i now have very few swing thoughts. i don't really think about what i am doing, i just have a general awareness of what i don't want to do and that funnels me towards good shots. i think the perfect golfer would have a database of having hit every bad golf shot and then recovered from them. however, life may be too short for that. which is perhaps why hogan said that there's not enough hours in the day to hit the amount of balls you really need to.

so as for swing trainers, no thanks. i want to do what i do for a reason. not because i'm programmed to do it. i watched a DVD on hogan the other day that had been ruined by the self-serving plug of a swing trainer.