At wo-step( nucleophilic substitution/palladation by oxidative addition) sequence provides ah igh-yielding access to an on-symmetrical palladium NNC pincerc omplex. An umber of terminal and internal alkynoic acids with different substitution patternsa tt he a-a nd b-positions are regioand diastereoselectively cycloisomerizedt ot he corresponding exocyclic enol lactones in the presence of exceedingly low amounts of the latter palladium complex, so that unprecedented turnovern umbers and frequencies ranging from 1,000,000 to 700,000 and from 41,667 to 9722h À1 ,r espectively, are achieved. Theo ptimized protocol, based on the use of ac atalytic amount of triethylamine as base,a llows an easy real-time monitoring of the reactionb y NMR spectroscopy.S everal pieces of evidence in favor of the direct participation of the above pincer complex as the catalyst of the reaction have been gathered from kinetic and poisoning experiments