Ben Hogan said, "The secret is in the dirt," obviously hinting that dedication, hard work, and perseverance are contributing factors in the success of a golfer.

Whilst today's breed of golfer very much follows this thought and works hard in many different areas—such as fitness, nutrition, stretching, and mental processes, as well as practicing their golf swing, many are now overly reliant on outside assistance at all times.

It has become increasingly apparent that there is a limited number of golfers who know their own swing and can work out any kinks when their ball striking goes into decline.

Every player has a "guru" who slaps them on the back, helps clear their mind, tells them to relax, gives them a thought to focus on, and tries to put that player's world in harmony again — until the next day!

If the elite players in the game have trouble solving their own swing with all the advanced technology, computer screens, apps, and high-speed videos and their guru instructors, then what hope does the average golfer have?

Many elite players who are known for their perfect swings still often struggle to hit fairways and greens. Tee shot percentage is at an all-time low right now, even for the best.

Are these players receiving the wrong information? Do they just accept the mediocrity of their tee shots being in play and on the short grass, no matter how hard they practice?

My honest belief is that not only does my knowledge help golfers of every ability hit more fairways and more greens in regulation, but I give them a deeper understanding of their good and bad shots. 

My goal is to make the golfer more complete. Even to the extent of phasing myself out as their instructor in the long term.

That logic may sound crazy — to phase myself out — but great golfers don't need to continually search and hope that one day it will all magically appear, and they will be able to strike the ball with great precision on a day-to-day basis.

Jack Nicklaus only visited his lifelong coach — Jack Grout — at the beginning of each season for a tune-up. If you don't know what makes your swing work so well, then you shouldn't have your name on your golf bag. If you need to put out an S.O.S. call to your instructor every time something goes amiss, then you shouldn't expect to become the player you hope you can be.

My goal as an instructor is to show my players everything they need to know. I can answer any question they put forward. I can give every example of what makes a shot do what it does. This is based on knowledge and not guesswork.

What I show my golfers is true, proven, absolute evidence of the golf swing. Of the pressures. Of the intentions. And this is all based on different looking swings with no ideal swing model or base that every golfer must look like whilst swinging the club.

I ask my golfers to end the search and ultimately refine and repeat what works so well for them.

When I was 14 years old, I shot a 9 under par 64 at my home course, Rossdale Golf Club. A venue that hosted two Australian PGA Championships in the 1960s

On my 15th birthday, I played a major Australian PGA tournament. Not by invitation but from beating a high-quality field in the Monday qualifying event to earn my place in the field.

I shot a 10 under par round at Fulford Golf Club in England at the Benson & Hedges Event in 1989. My very first round on the European Tour. It still stands as the lowest ever opening round on debut.

I won most of the leading Amateur tournaments in Australia before turning professional. Just missing out on the Australian Amateur where I lost in the semi-final match in 1988.

I won my 3rd event as a professional. By taking out the 1988 Western Australian Open, I broke Greg Norman's record of winning in his fourth start as a professional.

I played in all four Major Championships. Masters, United States Open, The Open Championship and the PGA Championship. Ten majors in total.

I was on the International team in the inaugural Presidents Cup matches in 1994.

Two-time Australian Masters champion in 1993 & 1998. I also hold the scoring record for lowest 18 holes. Lowest 36 hole total. And also the tournament record of 268, 24 under par, which shattered the previous scoring record held by Greg Norman by five shots.

Australasian Tournament Players Champion in 1996 by a record 12 stroke margin. This equals the largest margin of victory in an Asian tour event also held by Tiger Woods.

Finished 4th in the total driving statistics on the PGA Tour in 1998, behind Hal Sutton, David Duval, Duffy Waldorf. Nick Price was right behind me in 5th place.

United States PGA for 8 seasons. European Tour for 4 seasons. Japan PGA Tour for 3 seasons. And played on my homeland, the Australasian Tour, for 25 seasons, where I still rank in the top 20 career money leaders.

A lot of my swing building came in the era of persimmon woods, blade irons with small club heads and high spin balls. The swing ingredients had to be wonderfully precise to make solid contact on the ball with the desired accuracy and the correct trajectory.

As the equipment evolved, I realized the swing itself didn't need to be altered. Yes, the drivers became larger and the ball could be teed up a little higher, but the skeleton of the swing was still the swing. I was able to transfer the shift in equipment into the modern game without altering the swing itself. After all, physics does not lie even though the implement has changed a little.

The first time I won the Australian Masters in 1993, I hit 63 greens in regulation for the week. That is putting for birdie 87% of the time. In the final round, under the intense pressure of challenging for the tournament, I hit all 18 greens in regulation. I also hit the playoff hole in regulation. The approach on the 72nd hole was with a 3 iron to less than 2 feet from the hole. On the playoff hole, I used a 4 iron to put myself in position to win. 

The Huntingdale course was no pushover. It was not a pitch and putt course. Long irons were frequently needed to hit second shots into par 4 holes. The fairways were extremely narrow and driving the ball straight was at a premium.

When I won the Masters again in 1998 with a record score of 24 under par, I hit all 18 greens in regulation in the first round and the third round. Totaling 65 greens in regulation for the week at an astonishing 90% of greens in regulation hit for the week. Striking the ball that well means you don't even need a hot putter to have a chance at victory.

The Australian Masters is like a who's who of world golf. Winners include Greg Norman (6 times), Berhanrd Langer, Mark O'Meara, Gene Littler, Justin Rose, Colin Montgomerie, Robert Allenby, Craig Parry.

Fairways and greens was my style of play. I was also fortunate to be one of the longer hitters on tour — but never worried about length. To me, straight was far anyhow!!

As a result, I tended to play US Open courses very well because the setup demanded quality driving and greens in regulation were paramount because of the long rough and the fast greens.

Being a terrific ball striker really helped set me up for the success I managed in tournament play.

Today's golf swing theories just do not go along with the blueprint of what all the great ball strikers of golf showed us in the past. These golfers wrote books and produced many videos to follow, but unfortunately very few people are listening. 

When I hear an instructor (or God help us — an influencer) talk about keeping the club on the plane, I instantly cringe and settle in for a good laugh. Instructors who talk about keeping the club on the same plane going back and coming down do NOT fully understand the golf swing. Many fell for the Hogan plane of glass theory, which was excellent, by the way. However, Hogan never said to swing up and down on the same plane. He said DON'T BREAK THE GLASS!! Meaning don't come over the glass with the club.

We see lines drawn all over videos, flashlights tracing the plane. This is an untrue concept and entirely false, as the swings of the greats show nothing of the sort. If there was a flashlight on Lee Trevino's club it would almost be anywhere but on the swing plane.

Do we need to see club shafts pointing at the ball halfway down on the way to impact? No, of course not. There is a reason for this and the reason is related directly to force and pressure. Yu cannot keep pressuring a club up and down on the same line as it will eventually come flying off that plane.

I also hear many instruction videos and articles insisting that the right hand should fully release the club and roll it over. This is again far from the ideal.

A thrusting right arm closes the cluface and pushes the club head off plane. Remember, the right arm started bent, so it should remain bent at strike point IF you want to have control of the low point of the strike and keep the club face pointing at the target upon ball separation from the club face. It is an inconsistent way to play golf. Some days, the stars align, and a player hits the ball well, but the next day, they are off with their rhythm or off in the way the right arm and hand straighten and roll, and they are straight back to their old habit of yelling fore and searching for their golf ball for much of the day.

Keeping the shaft on plane on the way down just isn't an ideal goal. For if you aren't going to keep the club and shaft exiting on plane then the rest doesn't make for much difference. 

So why do players get caught up in this type of belief and what role does today's equipment play in making them swing in this uncontrollable manner?

As I have mentioned many times, today's equipment is not designed by quality golfers like it was in the oast. Today's equipment is designed by scientists who aren't great golfers and do not understand the correct golf motion. Their sole intention tends to be distance at all costs. So they make clubs longer, and they make them lighter, and they make the club head bigger to help avoid mishaps. 

The lie angles are far too upright, insisting players bring their hands high to the ball, raising their impact plane and giving them no option but to send the club off plane with a flip or roll through the hitting area.

It is a total disaster as we now have club fitters and manufacturers telling us to hit up on the ball for distance because the drivers have sweet spots too high on the face. So you now have two entirely different swings. One for a driver and one swing for an iron. Two different actions with often disastrous results.

The equipment being produced, and the club fitting process breeds a vicious circle of incorrect intentions in the swing and, as a result are damaging and ruining many more golf swings in the process.

I honestly believe today's golfers, whilst having so much information at their fingertips, have far less knowledge of the 'true swing' than at any other time in history.

The great champions of the past 30–40 years do not pass their wonderful information down into the system.

Many of the great players of the past are still competing on the Champions Tour. Many have made so much money from the sport that they don't need to go out and teach to gather income. Therefore, their knowledge is not being passed on. 

Some build golf courses or retire to the rocker on the back porch and enjoy the life they yearned for after all those years of travel and tournaments.

Today's generation has missed out. We have skipped an entire generation of true golf knowledge.

Instead of fantastic world-class golfers passing down their experience, we now have instructors who have no real basis for teaching other than getting a degree online or from a classroom or from reading books or watching YouTube videos. Many of these instructors are basing their work on the simple tactic of owning a camera or a phone to download swings into apps and drawing lines on the screen in an attempt to seem smart to their students.