My assistant pro – Troy Malo – just got back from PGA School Level 2 in Florida. To become a PGA member you have to jump through a lot of hoops - passing the PGA Schools is one of the biggest hurdles.  

At this particular PGA School, Troy was taught the latest version of the “correct” way to teach the golf swing. From now on, Troy and his classmates are supposed to teach the “perfect golf swing”. 

It seems that a PGA member developed a model of the “perfect” swing. So now PGA golf instructors are supposed to make their students conform to the model. When he told me about this challenge, I thought he was joking. 

So, everybody is supposed to have the same swing? Everybody … young, old, fat, thin, flexible, stiff, etc. You can see why I thought it was a joke. 

Many years ago I used to be the winter golf pro at a sports facility in Minnetonka. The manager recruited a bunch of ex- North Stars and Twins and other jocks to teach sports and run sport camps. This place thought it was a big deal. Major league professional teams from all sports sent over players for tune ups or makeovers – even some Olympians. 

The manager and I argued over everything. The main reason was that he would create computer models of the “perfect” athletic motion - throwing, running, skating, batting, etc – then his trainers would try to make the athletes perform in accordance with his computer models. 

I didn’t (and still don’t) believe that people are clay to be molded into models. I believe in fundamentals and priorities – whether in athletic motions, or business, or governments, etc. The trick to being a successful teacher is to identify the fundamentals and then work with the student’s natural strengths to achieve mastery of the fundamentals. Too often, we become overly concerned with non-essentials at the expense of the fundamentals. 

The pursuit of the “perfect” swing is fine – if you’ve already mastered the fundamentals. And when you’ve mastered them, please stop by and visit me. See, I never saw Ben Hogan play golf and I would love to see someone who mastered the fundamentals.