I have a bit of experience with this very subject in a way.
Back in the late 90's and early 2000's I was a student of Hank Haney and one of his top teachers (Mark Murphy) I've posted my sad tale of wasted money here before. I went to Hank's Golf Ranch in McKinney when it was at it's peak and his youth program was full of kids. It was pretty darn impressive to be on the range before or after my lesson and see 20-30 kids, ages 5-18, all hitting beautiful golf shots with almost identical swings. Some of the really young one's were almost surreal in how well they hit the ball. They all learned the same golf swing with the same instruction from the first day they set foot on the range. They had weekly competitive tournaments there at the Ranch and they traveled a LOT to AJGA tournaments. These kids were groomed from the beginning to be great golfers. Yet, if you check on these kids later on in life, only Hunter Mahan could be considered a certified star and his dad was one of the Haney instructors. I wouldn't think that one PGA Tour star out of several thousand kids would be considered a successful experiment. That's not saying that Haney's Youth Program didn't create a LOT of good golfers that played in college or at a high level......but he certainly hasn't created a stable of PGA Tour players out of the kids that have passed through his program. And a lot of these kids were very talented and came from families that were willing and able to spend the money it took to reach the highest level their kids were capable of reaching. Yet few of them reached that top level.
In addition, my oldest daughter spent a semester at the IMG Soccer Academy in Bradenton Fl. courtesy of United States Soccer when she was in the National Pool in 2002. On site was was the David Ledbetter Academy and she roomed with a girl that was a full time resident in the Ledbetter Academy. Kids in the IMG academies (which included golf, baseball, soccer, tennis, and hockey at that time) went to school on site for half of the day and trained the other half. They were as close to playing a sport full time as any kids you will find and I can't think of many Ledbetter graduates that went on to PGA or LPGA Tour careers. Maybe you could include Paula Creamer and Sean O'Hair but neither spent much time at the Academy and in Sean's case his learning was on the mini-tours when he was a teenager.
So, I have to agree with Brian.......no.
Hard to create greatness from mediocrity, talent wise or with limited physical attributes even with better info and Trackman, it's a complicated recipe, but I think you have to be born with some of the right ingredients to make the Greatness recipe a success. JMO.
