´óÏó´«Ã½

Fisher had the best scoring average over the four majors in 2009

"The thing is," says the affable Baker, "there is no difference. It's the same lesson.

"Ross likes it kept simple. 'Just tell me what to do and I'll do it,' he says.

"Ross doesn't want to get involved with all the nitty gritty. Myself, a physio and a biomechanist do all that behind the scenes."

The pair meet a couple of times a week when Fisher's around, for two to three hours at a time.

Up to 60% of Fisher's practice time is taken up with long game work, while 40% is spent on the short game - chipping with and putting with both of them.

Often Baker and Fisher, 28, will go out and play a few holes, just so that the coach can get a feel for his game. Otherwise they will work through his bag checking his swing, implementing changes, videoing everything.

"Small changes can make a big difference in terms of scoring average," said Baker.

The 32-year-old coach travels to about half a dozen tournaments a year, but always leaves before the first round.

"I've really tried to instil that once the tournament starts it's about competing, not thinking about your swing," he said.

To show me what he meant by a normal lesson, Baker watched me hit a few balls on the Wentworth range.

Plugging the camera into a laptop, he put the footage next to some of former US Open champion , rather than the 6ft 3in Fisher, as we're roughly the same height.

Using the software, Baker drew lines to compare our club angles and various body positions during the swing.

In a nutshell, I was sliding my hips through impact, giving an in-to-out swing, and moving the low point of the swing arc back which caused my often heavy contact and draw/pull shots.

Interestingly, he showed me clips of and , neither of whom have what you would call textbook swings when seen frame by frame..
Kristian Baker casts his eye over Rob Hodgetts's swing at Wentworth

My grip seemed OK, and he was happy enough with the backswing, though we shortened it, by miles it felt like.

To improve my too upright posture he got me to place a club up my back and lean forward so the club stayed in the small of my back as I did so, making sure my weight was more on the balls of my feet.

To get the right amount of knee flex, he placed a club vertically on my front shoe laces and got me to bend until my knee touched it. And to keep the right knee flexed in the backswing he held a club across both knees as I swung, trying to keep them more or less on the club. Finally, to stop my backside moving, he got me to swing with my rear end touching a wall.

We then tried to get my hips rotating, and Baker introduced an impact bag to hit into to engender the right feeling.

The combination of a stable base, leading to the body coiling up like a spring as the shoulders turn back against the hips, is Baker's mantra and he comes back to it time and again.

Checking everything in the mirror at the back of the bay, I hit a few. A very strange feeling after 20-odd years of my old habits.

One piece of technology that Baker uses with some players is the . It's a lightweight harness with sensors at the top of the spine, on the lower back and on the glove hand.

Boffins have worked out the optimum values for a whole range of body movements and angles, and as you swing the graphic of a torso on the laptop goes from green to red and stops making a noise if you stray out of the parameters.

But it's not an everyday teaching device and they might only hook up Fisher once or twice a year to keep tabs on his progress.

Their work seems to be paying off - Fisher topped the greens-in-regulation stats in coming fifth at the and had the best scoring average over the four majors in 2009.

"It's very pleasing and shows we're on the right lines," said Baker.

"I would say he's 15% from ultimately where we think we can get him to. "We're looking to improve his mobility and stability in the lower body to create a much more solid platform.

"There's also a couple of minor swing changes to improve his consistency throughout the golf bag in terms of ball flight, trajectory and shape.

"He has always hit it a long way but his body is in much better shape, physically. He has a lot more control of the club and his distance control is far better.
"That extra 15% will take him into the world's top 10."

To get a feel for just how far ahead of us hackers the pros really are I asked Baker where my swing would come on the scale if you consider a top player like Fisher is at 100%.

"Can I be brutally honest?" he said, laughing. "Please do."

"At the start, probably 20%."

Slightly disappointing, obviously, though rather unsurprising. "And now?"

"Maybe 25%. We straightened you out and the contact was much better."

On the same scale, Baker reckons Fisher was 70% when they started together.

So what are the main differences between a pro swing and an amateur swing?

"Balance, and control of what the body is doing," he said. "Club golfers think a bigger swing makes the ball go further but it doesn't. A more efficient swing does.

"Distance comes from clubhead speed applied in the right way. But there are hundreds of things that go towards that.

"There's no instant fix - if there was I'd be out of a job."

Wentworth's famous is undergoing major renovations to lay new greens and make a few other tweaks such as adding a water feature on the 18th. It resembles a building site and that's how my swing feels.

But it's encouraging, and I've already been rumbled more than once studying my impact position in the mirror-lined lifts of television centre.

Click here to read Kristian Baker's answers to your swing questions.