Technique, not Effort. Cause, not Effect.

Technique, not Effort. Cause, not Effect

In my limited but enriching teaching sessions with students, I find a common thread that runs between the good students who graduate to greatness and the so-so ones who get mired in mediocrity.

What is the difference?

Per 3-B, "Eons of manhours are lost trying to substitute effort for technique and trying to eliminate effect instead of cause."

Technique is simply: "Skillfulness in the command of fundamentals deriving from practice and familiarity."

Applied in a golf sense, this simply means that we have an effective and efficient golf swing.

Technique stems from proper application of the scientific principles of the golf swing - physics which is the action and geometry which is the motion.

Technique does not and will never arise from applications of seems-as-ifs.

One seems-as-ifs is: "If I swing harder, then the ball must go further." This is giving effort precedence over technique and is the distinguishing hallmark of hackers the world over.

The relationship between effect and cause is one that is rarely understood by some groups of golfers and even instructors.

By way of analogy, a person unknowingly suffering from a brain tumour usually has unexplainable bouts of headaches.

The tumour is the cause but the headache is the manifestation of that malfunction in the head. Taking tons of Tylenol® only serves to provide a brief respite.

In much the same way, a bobbing (3-F-7-D) head which causes a thin/fat shot is simply the manifestation of a breakdown in the lead wrist.

However, if a wrong diagnosis is given, the student/player will be practicing aimlessly on "keeping their head down" with the end result being more thin/fat shots.

The bottomline here is that good players (often with the aid of a good coach) usually become good because they are able to pinpoint the cause and not the effects of the errors in their golf swing.

The hackers stay the way they are because they keep working the effects - much like taking Tylenol® will destroy a brain tumour.