Golfers have too much information to think about and much of the instruction they learn contradicts itself.

For example – you sign-up for a 6 lesson series of lessons to improve your consistency. In lesson #1 you’ve been told that you need to “bump” your hips towards the target to shift your weight to your left foot. So you practice and practice shifting your weight. But as soon as it starts becoming easy to do without too much thinking … you start to hit behind the golf ball with your irons.

So you got back for lesson #2 where you’re told your hips are much better, but you are now dipping (or dropping) your right shoulder on the downswing … causing the club to hit the ground too early.

You’re instructed that to fix the “dipping” problem you need to focus on turning your shoulders, instead of dropping the right shoulder. So you go out to practice “bumping your hip and turning your shoulders” like your Instructor taught you. And lo and behold, after a 1,000 golf balls at the range — you stop hitting behind the golf ball.

But a new problem has arisen – you start hitting your Driver with a wicked slice. Every time you hit your Driver … the ball starts a little left and then suddenly curves far to the right. It becomes so uncontrollable that you have to stop hitting your Driver on any par 4 or par 5 that isn’t 100 yards wide – and are pretty much relegated to hitting your 3 wood or an iron just to stay in play.

So you go back to see your Instructor for lesson #3 and it’s ‘discovered’ that you’re now swinging ‘over the top’ (an outside to in swing path – coming across the ball). The Instructor tells you that you need to have a more inside to out swing path (swinging towards right field).

In other words – “Henry, you initially need to drop your club into the slot on your first move on the down swing.” So now it’s off to practice ‘dropping the club into the slot’.

As you incorporate this inside to out swing path your Driver stops going to the left before curving right. Now it just starts right and curves even more right.

So you go back for lesson #4 to find that the reason the golf ball is starting to the right and curving more is that you’re keeping the clubface open and need to “square up the face at impact”. You’re now taught to add the skill of turning over your forearms on your follow-through, to go along with bumping your hips, turning your shoulders and “swinging inside to out”.

But as you begin to beat golf ball after golf ball turning over your forearms in your follow-through — you start to find that you’re now hitting low shots to the left that feel as if they’re hitting on the toe of your club.

Now as frustration has really set in, you go back for lesson #5 of your 6 lesson series. You’re told the reason for these low shots to the left is that you’re using your hips to shift your weight to your left foot. “You need to have your hips turn so that they twist … they shouldn’t be moving forward”

Wait one second – “didn’t you tell me in lesson #1 that I need to “bump my hips towards the target? And now you’re saying I shouldn’t be bumping … that I should be twisting? I’ve been bumping and bumping for 4 weeks now … when I should’ve been twisting? And now 5 lessons later I have been doing it wrong all this time?”< The Golf Instruction industry is such a fragmented industry that’s all too often based on the individual ‘Theories & Assumptions’ of the Instructor you choose. Thus, you’re relegated to their preconceived notions of what the golf swing should look like. As opposed to using a ‘Results Based’ approach of helping the Golfer improve what they currently have ... and then ... slowly enhancing their golf swing with subtle swing refinements. The difference between these two philosophies is: ‘Theories and Assumptions’ has the Instructor changing your golf swing to fit what he/she believes the golf swing should look like ... hoping that you will eventually see improvement. On-the-other-hand - a ‘Results Based Approach’ is focused on first helping the Golfer see more consistency using the swing you already have ... followed by working on refinements to further improve distance and accuracy. Because the instruction that was taught above was just creating more and more compensations based on the lessons given. The reason the Golfer started hitting behind the golf ball was because when the Golfer bumped his/her hips ... it forced their right shoulder to drop. And then the correction of turning your shoulders (while bumping) caused you to ‘come over the top’. And then the correction for ‘over the top’ caused you to ... add another compensation to be practiced and learned. Most Golfers are taught to fix an error by being given a compensation that will just create another error that will make it necessary to be given another compensation to fix that error, etc. It’s similar to how the US Government works. Which is why it’s no wonder it may always seem as if your golf swing is shutting down on you. The Monkey Instructor teaches by using ‘Theories and Assumptions’ that are based on a preconceived notion of what the golf swing should look like The Truly Skilled Instructor uses a ‘Results Based Approach’ that’s based on seeing improved results with the Golfer’s current swing ... then working on refinements Go ahead, Be a Player! Regards, Marc Solomon - Your Instructor For Life www.GolfMadeSimple.com