What You've Always Thought About Golf May Be Wrong

So golf nuts, you want to break 100, 90, 80? You've read all the books you could get your hands on. You've spent hours playing round after round hoping that everything "clicks" this time. You think about golf at work, you dream about golf clubs when you're mowing the lawn, you can't wait to get back out there in pursuit of that mysterious magic number that makes you finally a "golfer" and not a hacker. All you need is that one tip or new swing thought that transforms you into that next great wizard of the fairways. You visualize yourself as the golfer who wows the crowds at Augusta National year after year with your flawless play (and amazing recovery shots on that rare occasion that finds your ball somewhere other than preciously the right spot for an attack at the pin).

Wake up and pinch yourself.

I would wager a small sum that you are no different than most of the people I've talked to during the countless hours I've spent on the golf course. Almost without fail, they have two basic truths of golfing wrong and therefore waste a great deal of time, energy and money chasing a shadow. Simply put the two fundamental things about golf that most people get wrong are:

1) Scoring is the sole object of golf.

2) There is a great veil of mystery to being a great golfer that only a life transforming pilgrimage, sacrifice, or eye opening epiphany can pierce (in other words, there's a secret that once known, makes the game easy).

To elaborate on point one, I must tell the story of when I came to the realization of this wide spread misunderstanding about what golf is all about. I was quite young, perhaps 8 or 9. I had already spent a fair amount of time on the course tagging along with my father: helping carry his clubs, looking for the ball, chasing the butterflies, searching in the creek for golf balls, frogs and other things. The process of golf was not foreign to me. My father was given a new, shiny golden plaque by some of his fellow golfers in his golf league as, I'm sure, a prank. This plaque was an enigma to me for the words were strange and difficult to sound out and beyond my young comprehension. I can remember reading it over and over; memorizing it despite the fact I did not understand the meaning of the words, or how to pronounce them. It was a humorous definition of golf that provided an insight for me that is seemingly lost on many of my fellow lovers of the game. The words said this: Golf is the ineffectual attempt at directing an uncontrollable sphere into an inaccessible hole with instruments ill-adapted to the purpose.

I wasn't so young or naïve as to have the humor lost on me, yet I did recognize that nowhere in this simple yet multi-syllabic sentence did it mention how many strokes it took for you to get there or how you would be "ranked" if you didn't do it in par, bogey or eagle. Or that penultimate of disgrace: in so many stokes that you finally just pick up that gosh darned golf ball and walk to the next tee saying *#@$ this @#*dratted fool game anyway! You see golf, after all, is a game. Furthermore, it's a solo game. It's you, your ill-adapted instruments and the pretty park you're walking around in.

I played once with a man who had one arm and an artificial leg. He shot a golf score that would have made me want to melt my clubs and give up the game forever. It was because of the joy on his face after what was obviously, for him, an outstanding round that made me wonder if I wasn't looking at the game from the wrong angle. It is forever etched in my mind's eye how he took 6 strokes to get down the length of the first tee. Yes, the round lasted a very long 5 + hours but the guy had such a fire and joy in just being out there pitting himself against the course that I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. He opted to play around a pond that was only 50 yards across. He only had three clubs in his bag. A 4 iron, an 8 iron and a putter. He used each of them individually far more often in that one round than I used my whole set. So where was his joy coming from? Was I placing too high of value on the "how many" instead of concentrating on how well I managed to meet the challenges of pitting my abilities against the obstacles the game presented me? Then I remembered the plague and its lack of reference to score.

Everyday is a different round. The wind blows a little differently. The sun shines through clouds of a slightly different color and composition. Some days the ball hops toward the hole and some days away. All of these variables are things beyond your control and are very real factors that influence your round. Each can contribute to either a satisfying round of golf or one that makes becoming a hermit in the Himalayas seem like a good idea. If you've played enough then you know that one day you can be striking the ball crisply and cleanly, putting it on the line you see nearly every stroke and still can't buy a birdie while another day you feel like you couldn't hit the ground with an anvil on a rope and yet the putts all seem to drop and the breaks seem to go your way. The day I came to this realization and stopped worrying about the score I was shooting and started concentrating on my course management and shot selection, I dropped several strokes.

To sum this all up for now: It's not the score that's important; it's how well you use you in the ongoing battle against the game. Ask any pro and they will tell you that on a good day they are able to hit a "perfect" shot maybe three times in a round. And that's a GOOD day. Sure, they have skills you and I lack either from diligent and well directed practice or just plain superior athletic ability. They all know that they must work with what they have and trust that it will be enough.

Next installment: Dispelling the mystery theory and other kernels of insight.

If you missed my last article and this one sparks an interest here's a link.

A Slightly Different Look and Perspective on Approaching Golf