How Easy is it to Master the Clear Key Process?

As with all things human, there are personal variations in skill, knowledge, perception, and commitment that affect individual success. Add to that the kind of time, attention and energy required by any given desired result and you have a much more complex issue than most people want to imagine.

Some players find it relatively easy to employ a conscious thought process that produces the automatic path necessary for the release of swing habits from "day one," while others may struggle with it. Some of that comes from the influences of normal individual style characteristics, but that's not the whole of it.

For instance, a Craftsman will typically have the least difficulty among the styles as far as managing the rhythmic nature of the keys. Persuaders catch on to the relaxing fun of it, but are apt to have rough edges in organizing pre-shot functions. Analyzers ordinarily require more time to assure themselves that "automatic" really works, but once they understand the accuracy of the principles involved, they tend to develop the skill in the least overall time. Drivers typically get immediate positive results, but often try to "improve" on the process, usually by short-cutting, which compromises getting the job done.

Style is not the only influencing agent, however. Values, perceptions, beliefs, prejudices, and emotional maturity figure heavily into the patterns by which people accept or adapt to new activity.

The micro-wave, TV, computer, facsimile, frozen-food, lottery, credit-card, bank machine, fast-food environment we live in have all but obliterated any idea that we can't have everything we want instantly. (And if you can't get it that way, forget it). Consequently, there is a lot of rhetoric about the importance of patience in the game, while the demonstration of that patience in getting to it is often missing. No matter that we acknowledge how much time normal processes require, we are rarely prepared emotionally to do the waiting. It may be appropriate to expect a fast-food hamburger instantly, but one can't order skills or habits at a drive-thru window.

Often there are missing elements in what is used to evaluate an idea or action, causing us to hold beliefs that aren't serviceable. In the words of Bertrand Russell, "Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken."

If that were not enough, another "rub" lies in how consistently players have developed their skills and turned those skills into firm habits. The problem here is that there are three distinct elements in that development, two of which have largely gone unrecognized. The first is identifying and learning the skill itself, which is a manual activity. (That's the only one that has been attended to with any degree of dedication). The second is systematic repitition of each skill long enough for it to become a habit. (We can't or won't recall how long it took us to learn to walk and how many times we fell down in the process). The third is a firmly practiced automatic path that secures the habits and then provides the means for those habits to "come out of storage" on command and "do their thing." (We've done that so naturally with most things that we failed to notice the patterns that form the process for development and release of all habits, without which, they won't work).

Some players have the desired skills, but have not practiced in a manner that produces the desired habits. (Everyone produces habits, but not necessarily the ones that are desired). No matter the shape of the habits, they cannot be retrieved without an automatic path to get them out of storage. There is no way of knowing the quantity or quality of habits if they cannot be tapped. Of course, there's no need to know so long as every shot is manually manufactured, but there's no need for the habits either, in that case. "Manufacturing" each shot as we come to it is the traditional method of choice. The primary clue to that is found in the typical fear that a golf swing will not survive even the two seconds it takes to walk to the ball following the completion of pre-shot routine, let alone last night's sleep.

Players may have skill and try to use the automatic process without habit development. In that event, the results are apt to be haphazard, leaving the incorrect notion that automatic won't work. In fact, it won't produce what is desired unless sound habits have been built from the skills at the player's disposal. What it will produce, however, is a clear picture of how much and what kind of need exists to improve the habits a given player has built around her/his skills.

It is not possible to know whether one has built any habits at all without putting them on automatic, since that's the only way habits will show up. The catch is that unless a player recognizes the governing principles of the automatic process, what will follow is a belief that golf can only be played on "manual," by thinking about what is being done while doing it, which encourages an assumption that the automatic process "just happens" by itself (as in finding "The Zone").

A player may have habits which are not apparent until they are given an automatic path, so that what was believed to be one way turns out to be another way entirely. That player may be surprised by what emerges on automatic and think something is "wrong." It may happen, however, that the player discovers habits that are far better than were anticipated. (Remember, if the player has been playing on manual, there is no way to know what habits really exist or what shape they are in).

The "moral" is that using the words "habit" and "automatic" don't insure the results implied by those expressions. Using those words without employing the processes and the principles does little more than add mystery and frustration to a player's life.