Happy magpies and blown fuses...

Information is power, they say. You can never have enough of it.

Not unless, that is, it blows your fuses.

When it comes to the short game, my fuses have long gone. Blown to smithereens. I love golf information, always will. The trouble is, most of what I have collected is contradictory. Some say do it this way, some say that.

I’ve no doubt all can be made to work. Unfortunately, I’ve never really made my mind up what’s right for me. It all depends on whose book I last read. I’m a happy magpie. But imagine trying to chip while still thinking: “Mickelson, Utley, Seve or Golf Monthly? Which method this time?”

It doesn’t work.

So there I was on Friday, listening to yet another way of doing things.

Dave Lamplugh, of the Knightsbridge Golf School, spends about an hour with me. It's all part of the KGS's new book, provisionally entitled "The Golfen Rule". During that time, I discover that, despite my best endeavours, I chip like a dork. A well-informed dork, but a dork all the same.

My hands roll, my arms twist and my shoulders don’t turn. I fan my club open, then come back from the inside, with the heel pointing at the ball. Usually I push the ball to the right. The contact is always a bit iffy - good, bad, indifferent and shank.

Dave says a lot of fascinating things, but two points stand out.

“Why not make it as simple as it can be?” he asks. “Surely chips and pitches are just miniature swings?”

Are they?

Yes they are, he says. All I have to do is to isolate the impact zone and transplant it from my long game and into my short game. There is nothing new to learn, no new way of standing, no new ball position, no new grip or movement.  “Using this method,” says Dave, “will give you 90 percent of all the short-game shots you will ever need... unless you play regularly at Muirfield or Augusta. It’s simple and it makes sense.”

I watch Dave for an hour. All his chips and pitches go straight. They all fly in the air. They all come out of the centre of the club, accompanied by that wonderful ‘click’ produced by proper shots. Oh, and his hands don’t roll.

I get home, phone Adam and say he can have his Mickelson short game back. And he can borrow my Stan Utely and Pelz books too, if he wants...