Lessons from the links - 2."The Secret"

You don't have to spend too long browsing golf web sites before you come across large banner ads suggesting that the secret to good golf scores lies but a click away. Click on one, however, and you'll soon realise that several clicks and crucially your credit card details are required before this information is divulged. The sheer number of these sites means there must be a market for them. I'm very dubious about these claims and yet still find myself tempted in my weaker moments.

This phenomenon is of course not just limited to golf. The Internet is awash with purchasable "secrets" that promise quick fixes without the work and it's tempting to dismiss it as a symptom of that most modern of maladies, the so-called "quick fix culture". I'm not certain this is the case. I think there's a fair amount of evidence to suggest that this is a symptom of human nature, a perpetual victory of hope over experience. If you're in any doubt as to the veracity of this, think of the "snake-oil" salesmen in the Old West, and look at the whole industry around diet and fitness.

It's easy to get confused and you might worry that you'll never be able to negotiate your way through all the available information without either getting ripped off or missing out on the vital piece of the jigsaw, the one that magically takes your game from struggling round the weekly medal to the European Tour, or at the very least the latter stages of the British Amateur.

But fear not, for today, here & now, I am going to reveal, for free, the secret.

The secret is that there is no secret.

There is no magic move that will instantly take 10 shots off your game after an evening's practice. There is no single bit of information that will make a 26 handicapper into a world beater. There is no way to lose weight other than eating fewer calories than you expend over a prolonged period of time and although some devotees of Dr Atkins would dispute that last statement this is indeed how the Atkins diet works. You eat unlimited protein (which seems to fill you up) and fat (which most people find unpalatable in large quantities) and by excluding carbohydrates you limit the opportunity to indulge in more pleasurable fatty foods like hot buttered toast and french fries/chips.

Why then pretend there is a secret? The most obvious reason is that if you can make people believe you have a secret, you can make money from them. We would all love there to be a shortcut for long processes, such as skills acquisition in golf, and thus we're tempted when the possibility is dangled in front of us. The golfing press, and magazines in particular, probably depend on our belief in "the secret" for their very existence. Look at the cover of any golf magazine and you'll find the word "secret"- "secrets of the short game", " the secret to longer and straighter" etc etc. I went quickly from a 4 magazine a month addiction to no magazines at all after I stopped believing in these secrets, and I think many others would too.

There's another reason to pretend there's a secret, one that has nothing to do with people trying to put their hands in our pockets. Often the solution to the difficulties we face and would love to bypass are so elegantly obvious that we quite simply refuse to believe it. Want to lose weight? eat fewer calories than you expend, that's what's at the root of all successful diets, even that of the hideous poo lady (who can no longer call herself a doctor as she #hasnoPhD, Twitteratti ;-). Want to improve at golf? work hard, making sure your focus is on the correct areas (putting, short game, strategy probably ahead of full swing) working with a qualified coach in whom you have faith and concentrating on playing one shot at a time whilst on the course. If you invent a contrived, pseudo-scientific explanation for your "secret" it can often improve your credibility in the eyes of the credulous public, but eventually it only serves to complicate and obfuscate the true picture. In golf this has happened so much that many of us are not at all certain where the true path lies.

I said it was simple; I didn't for a second imply it was easy!

Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that none of the mooted techniques work. On the contrary, I've used some to good effect (Carey Mumford's clearkey and Andy Morrison's "glued tongue", apparently both examples of a "pattern interrupt" in NLPese which have helped me a lot). What I'm saying is that there's an awful lot of snake oil being sold out there from the frankly unhelpful to the slightly more useful but still potentially frustrating old idea dressed in new clothes. We should be cautious of any claims and try to find independent corroboration. One of the reasons I'm so fond of the Golf Smarter podcast is that it allows me to hear a coach discuss their philosophy and techniques in detail, whilst being quizzed by the host. And if there's no corroboration available how significant a secret can it have been in the first place?

As ever, please feel free to comment, either below or to @The_Golf_Geek on Twitter.

I've had a fantastic response to this post, both in the comment below & on Twitter. I've had an interesting back-and-forth discussion with Michael Landgrebe of Confident Golf, who gently explored whether my instruction to "work hard" at golf might have been better expressed. It's pretty clear from our discussion that we're coming from the same place on this issue, so I just wanted to post a wee clarification.

I do stand by what I said- golf isn't easy, and it's a good thing it isn't. If golf were easy we'd never know the joy of achievement that we get from a new low round, or from hitting a draw from a slice lie into a 2 club wind which lands 4 feet from the hole. But golf is a game, and at it's heart should lie playfulness, enjoyment and fun. I've worked hard at my golf, but never once has it felt like hard work.

I have many demands on my time, with family and career, and if golf weren't fun I simply wouldn't do it. My coaches advocate a game which is joyfully creative, and I know if golf ever ceases to be enjoyable for me they will quickly help me reconnect with why I fell head over heels in love with the game. If golf is feeling like hard work for you, might it be time to consider a change in coaching?