Every golfer has been there.

“Man, why did that go so far to the right?”

What the golfer in question really meant to say was something like, “Man, how did that go so far to the right that it passed the second hole, third hole, George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh?”

The easy answer always comes from the person in the group who eventually becomes known as the smart aleck.

“I think you sliced it,” says the smart aleck. “Came across it.”

Ya think?

Even more common than Captain Obvious, the smart aleck is Mr. Know-it-all, the self-appointed, self-help guru who reads way too many golf magazines and plays way too little golf to really know what he or she is talking about.

“I saw this exact problem in my golf quarterly,” says the know-it-all. “You have to fix it by shifting your weight here, lining up like this and changing the way you address the ball. Like this, see?”

On their next shot, the know-it-all lines a pull-hook into the trees to the left, out of bounds.

“See,” they say, “I fixed my slice.”

The truth of the matter is that every golfer swings the club differently. Professionals can wax poetic about the perfect swing all they want. Was it Ben Hogan? Gene Sarazin? The smooth-swinging Sam Snead? Who really knows? They were all good golfers – some of the best of all time – and each golfer had a swing that worked well for the individual.

There are some things in a swing that should never happen, no matter what style a golfer has adopted, but at the same time there are things that some people do that will never get corrected, so you work around them.

I hate using myself as an example. I am not by any means a scratch golfer. Never have been and even with the best golf magazines delivered directly to my door every day/week/month for the next 10 years, I would most likely not break 80 again for 18 holes.

But I will make the exception here, and maybe a few other times in the coming weeks, in an attempt to better relate the game and its nuances to you, the reader.

In this case, when talking about swings, and the lack of a perfect swing, mine is a perfect example. All the experts will tell you that the club, on the backswing, should come back parallel to the shoulders. I have never been flexible enough for that to happen, and I am too stubborn to improve that flexibility through the use of proper weight training and exercise.

The result? A swing that has adapted over the years to fit my physical profile. While not as dynamic and full of quirks as a 1998 Jim Furyk, the swing is its own. It’s my own. And yours should be your own.

A slice? We’ll ask around and maybe try to fix it in the coming weeks.

A hook? A topped ball? A ball hit so heavy the divot travels a greater distance than the ball? We’ll ask for help and look into those, too.

But remember, everyone has a unique way of doing things, and it won’t always be the same as your playing partner’s, your wife’s, or even your local golf professional.

In one of the greatest lines from one of the greatest golf books/movies of all time, Bagger Vance tells us all that “(He) believe(s) that each of us possesses, inside ourselves, one true Authentic Swing that is ours alone. It is folly to try to teach another, or mold us to some ideal version of the perfect swing. Each player possesses only that one swing that he was born with, that swing which existed within him before he ever picked up the club. Like the state of David, our Authentic Swing already exists, concealed within the stone, so to speak.”

Vance goes on to reply to an interested bystander that a golfer, a person’s job “is simply to chip away all that is inauthentic, allowing our Authentic Swing to emerge in its purity.”

Yes, Bagger Vance spoke of a topic much deeper than just golf, but then again, maybe this is what all of us need to remember more often. Enjoy the game, for it is what it is. Look for your own style, make it your own and change it for nobody.

And as for the know-it-alls and the smart-alecks? Listen, nod and laugh inside. They, too, are still in search of their own “Authentic Swing.”

Justin Pelletier is a staff writer. He can be reached at [email protected]