Feb
23
Hey there, it's time to talk golf. (I have a feeling it's what I'll be writing about the most around here...some may find it sad)Random notes:
1. I'll probably start a lot of entries with random notes, cause they'll be fresh in my mind, and I'll want to get them down in writing for whatever reason. I thought of putting them at the end of entries, but that means I'd probably forget them by the time I write what I have come to write. Which is the irony in blogging for me...I rarely come here to write anything other than the random. So maybe an appropriate title for this page would be "Random Thoughts," but hey, it's my page, I'll be picking (or maybe frequently changing) the title. So anyway...I changed my mind, and I'll put the randomness up front. Maybe because it'll get more visibility there, or maybe because, like I said, it might actually be what brings me to this page more often than not...who knows, maybe it will snowball into more on some days. (Case and point, this entry?)
Now for the real random notes I wanted to offer:
2. I forgot this one. (Damn!)
3. I heard Sunglasses at Night the other night...it's actually a decent song IMHO. (And I'm re-listening right now just to make sure I wasn't drunk [which I wasn't!].)
Just in case you were wondering, that was not the golf talk...here comes the golf talk.
Golf is a mental game for those that didn't know. And for those that didn't know, I play golf (almost for a living). I spent my first full year working on my game last year, coming across many obstacles and needing to find ways around them. Those included (a) finding practice time while living in NYC in a young marriage; (2) figuring out how to hit the ball (duh!) and what schools of thought I'd use to train myself physically; and the awe inspiring (d) {Thanks Buzz from Home Alone} that golf is a mental game of mental discipline as much as it is a physical game-
(Side: Sunglasses at Night just finished = still good)
-and it's even more mental once you can hit the ball in at least a predictable direction each timeyou step up to it.
Let me explain. It's a mental game like open the bathroom door is mental, or at least we all wish it to be. Have you ever been in a friend's bathroom, or even your own bathroom, and finished up, only to fumble over the doorknob, making it sound to all on the exterior, that you've dismantled and reassembled the simple device twice before sliding the latch free of the doorjamb to open the door and re-enter the Oscars party in your post-business glory? I mean really, how many times have you opened a bathroom door? and didn't you just turn the little lock a quarter turn? but in which direction was it?
It's a simple move, you reach, turn, pull. You anticipate the way the knob will feel, how it will or will not resist your will as you turn it (ours tends to resist and then snap open, feeling like you've broken the darn thing)
Remembered random though #2 (yay!) Many wold be amazed at just how much trouble Bill Watterson HAD finding work out of college, given his later creative genius set on display through Calvin and Hobbes.
Back to it:
Let's be honest, the mental game of bathroom door opening has beaten us all up from time to time. Our form is there, most days, as it should be, since we've done it a thousand times before. The mechanics are predictable; you can manage your "big muscles" while still administering the surgical precision required by your fingers in order to open the portal back into the party/game/restaurant from whence you once left. But again, it's mental. It's about confidence. It's about believing and or knowing that you can open the door flawlessly and then just watch as it swings open and curves gently right to left into the corner of a tight dogleg par-5 as you hold your finish and wait for the ball to come to rest in the short grass...
...wait, am I on the tee?
OK, so maybe it's a terrible metaphor, but what I'm saying is in early December, after playing 5 holes in even par (that's a good thing all you non-golfer-types) and forgoing my game-plan on the 6th tee at the Myrtle Beach PAT, I did mis-hit the shot into the right water, and instead of staying focused and putting the odds in my favor on the next shot, I got agressive, and forgot how to hit the ball (mentally and physically, but only physically because it was first lost mentally) and I took a 10. Yes a 10. I then rebounded with a bogey - 7 over through 7. From that point I put it back together and began to believe in myself a little again to pull something out of the bag that resembled a game, only to cap things off with a 5 putt, or was it 6?
So yes, you need to get your game to a point where you can stand on a driving range day after day and pound balls beautifully down the field before you, and do it again on the practice tee before a round. But you also (and more importantly, perhaps) need to be at a point mentally where you can play 18 holes of mentally tough golf, regardless of what the last hole was, regardless of what the last shot even was. Become mentally tougher over every shot, with quiet confidence, no matter what level at which you play, and you'll play better golf.
Make sense? ... sorry about the whole bathroom thing. Better luck next time, Tyler.
Until next time,
-T.J.
