How mammals learn (and golfers are mammals)

Experimental psychologists define learning as a change in behavior as a result of practice over time. Note that the definition is not an improvement, but a change. Practice something inefficient and your behavior will change, and become less efficient, as long as your practice is directed at making you more inefficient.

I know lots of golfers who believe that "the secret is in the dirt" and that they can improve their game by practicing more. I think of the secret as "in the safe" -- the safe has a combination lock, and the reason to practice is to figure out the combination.

My combination works ONLY for me. I can tell it to you -- it's very simple -- but I guarantee that it won't help you if you follow it. 

I've been playing golf for more than 50 years, and it took until very recently for me to unlock the safe, but once I did, I found my secret, and it works. It worked last week, yesterday, and it will work today. 

Alan Watts wrote, "Once you've gotten the message, hang up the phone."

Why did it take me so long to get the combination and unlock the safe? Because I tried way too many combinations that belonged to other people: people like Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, David Ledbetter, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Eddie Merrins, Percy Boomer, Jeff Goble, Bobby Clampett, Nick Faldo, Butch Harmon, Hank Haney...and that's a partial list. 

All of those books and lessons amount to the same thing: ways that other people play golf. Not one of them gave me a way for me to play golf that is best for me. The only person who was able to unlock the combination was me.

Now, I don't have to practice. I can warm up, but I have nothing to learn. I have the combination and have opened the safe. I took out the secret, memorized it, burned the paper that it was written on, and left the safe empty and with the door ajar.

I have to add that if I had tried to use the method I now employ earlier, I don't know whether it would work as well as it does. Perhaps it works so well because I tried all of those other approaches, perhaps not. No one can tell for certain what might have happened in a parallel universe.