[12 piece bucket]

Best basketball coach I ever had NEVER let us full court scrimmage. Always drills and half court scrimmage with lots of stops and replays (i.e. coaching). Years later, I asked him why. He said "I wanted the GAME to be the fun part that you guys looked forward to..."

If you tossed me a basketball today, some 30 years later, I'd shoot with no hesitation and no thought for my form -- I'd just be looking at the front of the rim trying to make it. If we played a pick-up game, I'd just be reacting to situations and PLAYING -- zero thought about form.

That has always been tough for me with golf (which I didn't pick up until I was 20 years old, vs. basketball with I've been playing since I was 10 or 11).

There's probably something to this to a certain extent . . . HOWEVER . . . . golf is a much more precise motion and "internally" generated. Some people just "naturally" and "instinctively" stumble upon the correct set of "fundamentals". Some people stumble upon the "right teacher" too. That teacher may sell one bottle of pills and some students may need that pill others may not but get that teacher's pill anyhow. In addition the concept of shooting a basketball is pretty intuitive. However with golf a poor concept of how the game works can be debilitating e.g. the PGA ball flight rules, not understanding the face, not understanding down out and forward. You said in hoops you "don't think about it" . . . you just look at the rim. What do you look at in golf? You can't look at your ultimate target . . . . what is your intention in golf? Some of the same problems exist in hoops . . . Larry Bird regularly shot 90% in free throws . . . . Shack's mom would be dead as door nail if he had to sink a free throw to save her life. Basketball is a great game lots of things apply from hoops to golf . . . but I think from a movement stand point golf is much more demanding of precision and complicated in terms of movement required.

So with golf be sure that your concepts and intentions are correct . . . then start working on the movements that achieve the imperatives.