Now on the tee, the Devil’s Advocate

If he ever did play golf I'm sure he was REALLY slow

Welcome back.  I’ve used Uncle Joe as a stand-in for The Great Satan, the Slow Player, because Joe’s opponent in WWII, Mr. Hitler, is just a wee bit over-employed as the personification of evil.  As I pointed out in my previous post, since there appears to be near universal agreement that slow play is horrible, why not find another poster boy who was undeniably messed up.

So here we are on the virtual first tee of our extended conversation about that plague on humanity, slow play.  To begin , let’s define our terms.

What is slow play?  Now a lot of you are pretty sure that there’s an objective answer to this, say anything over 4 hours for example. But for others anything lasting longer than 3 hours and change is an abomination. Others might be more lenient.  Can we all just inhale, exhale–that’s it– and agree on the following two assertions, both of them based on two of the greatest lines of the 20th century?  First off, let’s accept that there is an element of subjectivity to all of this, which brings to mind George Carlin’s line about driving: “Anybody driving faster than you is a maniac and anybody driving slower is an idiot.”  So for most golfers, slow play is anything that slows them up.  But then having said that, I will acknowledge that defining slow play also reminds me of Justice Potter Stewart’s statement that while he couldn’t define hard-core pornography, he knew it when he saw it, and we all know what slow play looks like: it’s the view you get of watching a guy plumb-bob yet another putt as you stand 140 yards away. Again. And it’s still only the fifth hole.

How is slow play affecting the game?   I have read comments asserting that slow play is killing the game, that somehow the additional 30 minutes that distinguishes a four and a half-hour round from the normative four hour one is driving people away from the game. (I understand that the standard for play in the U.K. may be something even brisker, say 3 hours or so, which makes me wonder if an English hour is, like the pound sterling, that much more valuable than its American counterpart.  Is there an exchange rate for units of time? Discuss amongst yourselves.)  Folks, let’s get this question of time and golf’s struggle to attract and retain players in perspective.  It’s not the added hour or even half hour that’s keeping people away. You lost them at the number four, or even three for that matter.  People have a lot going on these days and they’re looking for ways to recreate where they can be done, showered and back to the rest of their lives in a lot shorter period of time.  What’s hurting golf isn’t so much the time it takes to play 18 holes as the requirement that you play 18 holes.  But that’s another discussion.

What’s with all the drama?   Good Lord, but golfers do get worked up on this topic.  I’m not here to defend inconsiderate behavior and slow players should allow faster groups to play through if their natural pace is simply more leisurely. But I’ve seen vein-bulging yelling fits, and you may have heard about a recent incident on a Texas golf course in which a threesome trying to play through a slower group in front of them got into a fight and one player was stabbed with a broken shaft, severing an artery in his groin.  But what is behind the anger here? Yeah, it sucks to have to wait on shots but it’s not like the group in front of you is making you go to the back of the line at the DMV.  You’re out with your friends in a nice expanse of grass and trees doing something you enjoy.  I suspect that there is bit of the “I paid for this microphone” attitude at work here.  You’ve paid your greens fee, or your membership dues, and goddamn it, you are entitled to play your game at your pace, no matter what, and anybody who interferes with that is an asshole.  That pretty much sums it up, right?

You DEFINITELY don't want to be in back of his foursome

Well consider this repositioning, which I do in my role as the Devil’s Advocate on this topic.  Maybe, just maybe, the slower player is savoring the game a bit more deeply.  For them it’s not something to dispense with in as short a time as possible, but rather an activity to be enjoyed as deeply as possible.  Viewed in this regard, slow play is like Tantric golf, which brings to mind the world’s most famous advocate of the Tantric arts, Sting.  He’s got quite the rep for marathon shagging, and if there is any proportionality here one can only assume that a round of golf with him would likely be like a cricket match, lasting days.  The words you wouldn’t want to hear while waiting for your group to be called would be “Sting foursome on the tee.”

Next up: The causes of slow play.

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February 19, 2012

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Pace of play

Persistence of Memory or The Five Hour Round

One of the hotter topics in the world of online  golf discussions is the pace of play, or to be more accurate, the scourge of the slow player, that ubiquitous but still anonymous miscreant who’s messing up everything for the rest of us.  Don’t get me wrong. I like a fast round as much as the next guy, but I do have an issue with how this topic is addressed.

Basically the discussions are as one-sided as an AM radio talk show where every caller tries to outdo the other complaining about the Kenyan Socialist living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Strangely enough we have a topic that has people really worked up, which in and of itself implies that this is no minor or infrequent problem, and yet everybody appears to be a victim and nobody is a perpetrator.  If this is such a huge problem, one that threatens the very future of the game as some claim, then where are all the slow players?  Hell, it’s the internet.  Make up a name and stick up for yourself and your posse!  But no.  Total radio silence.

So let me break this vow of silence.  I’m going to stand up (virtually speaking of course) and say, “Hi, I’m Paul and I’m a slow player,” to which the rest of you out there (again in a strictly virtual sense) will respond, “Hi, Paul.”

So what’s my story?  Hey, I don’t know, it just kind of happened that way.  I don’t want to be slow, and I do try to follow the principles of ready play such as reading my putts before it’s my turn, or positioning myself behind my ball before it’s my turn to hit.  As I have described in this blog and in my book (hey, did I mention that I’ve written a book?), I can have a hard time getting comfortable over a shot and since I know that a tense swing is a bad swing, sometimes I have to go through a series of minor epileptic convulsions before the takeaway can begin.  I’m working on relaxing over the ball, and I do feel like I am making progress in this regard which is helping my pace of play, but the fact remains that I am apparently incapable of blithely strolling up to my ball, picking a target and just letting it rip.  Does that mean I should have my clubs confiscated?  Believe me, I’d like to be faster, if only because I know that would lead to better play as well.

So now that I’ve outed myself where do we go from here?  Well, let’s do this.  Let’s have a more extended and nuanced discussion about the pace of play  than the typical “slow play sucks, therefore slow players suck” kind of stuff that usually gets tossed around in this sort of forum.  We’ll do a little Nassau here: front, back and total, no presses and lots of junk.  So let’s meet again here on the first tee. But I can’t tell you when exactly.  I don’t always write that quickly.

 

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February 6, 2012

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A fan’s notes

The inspiration, if that word is even appropriate in this context, for this post comes from the recently concluded NFC Championship.  For those of you who live here in the U.S. of A., I’m going to assume that I don’t need to rehash the nauseating details of the 49ers’ loss.  For my international readers, allow me to offer the following as an explanation: Imagine that one of your best fullbacks has been sidelined with a knee injury and is unavailable for the biggest game of the year. In his place is a rookie whose first miscue is a failure to control the ball at his own end, allowing it instead to bounce off his knee thereby setting up a score for the opposition.  Then–oh yes, there’s more– in overtime he fails to control the ball again, setting up the winning score for the visiting team.  It was quite the opposite of brilliant.

 

Kyle Williams

What makes this painful episode fodder for this blog is that there was an almost golf-like, cringing, OMG-I-can’t-believe-I’m-seeing- this quality to watching one player contribute so substantially to his team’s demise.  It is true, as his teammates were quick to point out, that no one person is ever totally responsible for a team defeat, and there were other notable deficiencies in the 49ers’ performance. But still.  It was a lot like watching somebody three-jack it on the 72nd hole to blow the lead, and then seeing the same guy plunk it in the water on the first playoff hole.

But it is in the aftermath of the game, and the startling contrast between the composure of the player in question, Kyle Williams, and the reaction of certain fans, that the most interesting aspects of the whole fiasco reveal themselves.  First, young Mr. Williams handled his postgame interviews with class, refusing to make excuses and taking responsibility for his mistakes.  In other words, he acted as we are accustomed to seeing Tour golfers behave when they have to explain their failures under pressure.  San Francisco fans can only hope that Kyle learns what Rory learned at Augusta last year.

The other, and uglier, side of the coin were the death threats to Kyle Williams made on Twitter in the hours after  the game.  And herein lies one of the more interesting contrasts between golf and other sports. Strangely, fans will work themselves up into a homicidal frenzy when an individual contributes to the defeat of a team, but nobody makes death threats to a golfer who blows a Major on the back nine Sunday afternoon.  And yet, if blame were directly proportional to responsibility, shouldn’t it be the other way around?

But of course it’s not that way.  And before we allow ourselves to get all smug about how much better we are than the lowlifes who made the death threats, let’s have all the Forty Niner fans in the room engage in a moment of honest self-appraisal, and admit to harboring, and likely expressing, feelings about Kyle Williams that we never expressed when we watched Dustin Johnson at Pebble (Whistling Straits was a little different, though, wasn’t it?) or Greg Norman at Augusta all those years ago.

Train wreck at The Masters

One quick explanation, in a sort of off-the-rack intellectual way, is to explain this in evolutionary terms.  If somebody screws up something for the group, they have obviously blown it at least once and therefore could be viewed as a potential threat to the group’s survival.  We’re not wired to tolerate that sort of thing.  In fact, we’re programmed to react very strongly and we get extremely pissed at the dimwit who gets upwind from the mastodon and tips him off about the ambush.

But when it comes to golf, voila, we have evolved a few steps further.  As fans who are also players, we have acquired the precious quality of empathy.  We know what it’s like to stand over a Putt That Means Something and then see the ball roll past the cup.  We’ve launched it O.B. on an important drive.  We’ve sprayed the critical approach shot.  We don’t get mad when we see a pro do the same thing.  We feel sorry for the guy.

And so it was that I found myself feeling sorry for Kyle Williams a lot more quickly than I thought possible.  Maybe I’m just getting old.  Maybe after five Super Bowl victories I can’t get all worked up in a desperate way about a sixth (which just shows that I could never qualify as a New York Yankee fan).  Maybe the S.F. Giants World Series Championship in 2010, by completing my fan bucket list, has thereby made me a big softy.  Or maybe, golf has taught me something about what it means to be a fan, and that you don’t just wear the jersey, but you put yourself in the players’ shoes as well, and from that vantage point you can only do what you have to do for yourself after a disappointing shot: learn the lesson that’s been offered, forgive yourself and move on.

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January 24, 2012

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Golf, brought to you by……

With Tebowmania perhaps cresting–there is no knowing at this point what will happen in Foxboro on Saturday–I thought it  appropriate to bring up something that I’ve been pondering for a while: what if religions sponsored sports?   And by sponsorship, I mean the full Monty: TV ads, promotions, annoying pop-up ads on espn.com, the whole menu.  We supposedly have this separation between church and state in this country, but it doesn’t say anything about separation of church and sport in the Constitution.  On the one hand, you have these large enterprises looking for new customers, and on the other, you have potential customers with a demonstrated inclination for being passionate about something.  It’s a potential marriage–dare I say it– made in heaven!

Tag, you're it!

Some pairings just seem so natural:

Soccer and the Roman Catholic church: Both very big in the Latin world, and both run by corrupt bureaucracies.

Canadian football and the Eastern Orthodox church: Because they both play essentially the same game as the more popular version, just on a different schedule.

Lacrosse and the Church of Latter Day Saints (that’s the Mormon Church, dude): Both born in the good old USA and growing fast!

The X-Games and Satanism: “Hey, bro, it’s not like we’re really into this shit, we just want to piss off our parents some more.”

Hacky sack and Rastafarianism: What? I have to explain this one to you?

Jai alai and Bahai: Why not? And I don’t know anybody who understands either one of them.

But, hey, enough of this. Let’s get down to what matters to us: who sponsors golf? Now I know that question would seem absolutely ridiculous to Tom Lehman or Webb Simpson.  To them it’s obvious: Christianity, of course.  But, really, can Jesus cover all the sports? It’s kind of spreading Him a little thin.  It makes Him sound like Bud Light.

Let’s also give golf a little credit. Like the Big Boy sports, baseball, football and basketball, there’s a huge audience out there and you can’t just assume that some random cult is going to wander in off the street, throw down a bag of dough and corner all the advertising on something so big.  Everyone is going to want in on it–assuming of course that the demographics test out properly– and so there will be room for everybody.  So let’s consider the pitches here:

Judaism: (First the disclaimer. Before anybody reads the following and gets all tweaked, you need to know the following: I’m married to a Jewish woman, father to three Jewish sons, AND a member of a golf club that was once predominantly Jewish.  Basically that entitles me to say what follows without recrimination.  It’s like the brothers and the n-word.  If you’re part of the club, it’s cool.)  Hey if you control the banks, the media and Hollywood, why not try to corner a big chunk of golf as well?  And, besides it’s not like it’s a game that requires a lot of agility, foot speed and strength, just the money to afford it, the ability to negotiate, and an endless capacity for complaining.  We’re in!

Buddhism: Number four religion in the world, people.  They’re going to want some air time.  Besides, all that talk about lack of attachment and living in the present moment sounds just like golf’s mental coaches.  It’s a natural!

Islam: Hey, let’s keep an open mind here folks. Think about it for a moment. Sand plays a very big role in both. That’s one thing. Also, both have a tendency to impose rather severe penalties for infractions.  Pilgrimages are also encouraged.  Besides, you can’t have something like  the Race to Dubai and then exclude them.

Christianity: The numero uno franchise operation in the business is going to take down a lot of  ad time.  The variety of denominations makes for some great sponsorship opportunities.  The Quakers get first shot at promotions for the Putt of the Day because that’s a group that knows how to keep their mouths shut.  The Baptists get all the water hazards and the Catholics get to trot out the patron saint of golf, St. Jude.  Why him, you ask? Check it out: not only is he the patron saint of lost causes, his symbolic attribute is…a club. Kind of spooky actually.

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January 13, 2012

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Is life like golf, or is it the other way around?

One of my favorite topics for Pointless Speculation is to think about the similarities, or lack thereof, between golf and life. I discuss this in my book, “Why We Golf,” and I’m indulging in more of it here in my first post of the year.   As you’ll see I can go either way on this question.

Evidence that golf is not like life, or at a minimum, not like this particular view of it:

Remember that bumper stick that said something to the effect of “Life is not a rehearsal”, or the more formal version, “Life is not a dress rehearsal”? It was straight out of the Carpe Diem school of thought, a grab the gusto and go get ‘em view of existence.  Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any of these bumper stickers in a while, which makes me wonder if all the purchasers of them died in fiery car wrecks on their way home from yet another wild-ass, go for broke party with their anarcho-hipster-fuck-the-establishment extended circle of really brilliant, creative friends.  But that’s not my point.  While I do think that this existence is a single pass ticket, and doesn’t offer  passes or memberships that enable you to avoid the lines and keep coming back, golf, when played at its best, is a series of rehearsals.  There is nothing more reassuring than telling yourself as you begin your back swing that you have hit this shot before.  The pros who win major championships are the ones who are able to look at the impending six-iron over a water hazard on the 72nd hole and view it simply as something they have practiced countless times before.  And if that doesn’t resonate for you, this should: the swing that you wish you could take from the range to the course is the swing that is a rehearsal.  That’s why it works so well.

Evidence that golf is like life, or at least offers instruction as to how best to live:

Want to screw up a career round? Of course we all know the answer to this: you do the math in your head and figure out what you have to shoot on the next few holes in order to beat your best score ever and–presto!–you’re on your way to a couple double-bogies. (Special update: just did this today in fact. I really believe I would be a much better golfer if I had the math skills of a kindergartener. This ability to do sums in my head is really getting me nowhere.)  It’s just that easy! It has occurred to me  that this phenomenon in which tracking performance interferes with that very same performance clearly applies to life in general. Now that I’ve become a social media whore I’ve entered a world in which I have multiple ways of keeping my score: How many Twitter followers do I have? How many visits to my blogs today? How many copies sold?–Oh yeah, did I mention that I’ve written a book?  And here’s a news flash: it doesn’t help the creative process.  Not only does it take time, it distracts me from doing the work that I’m supposed to be completing.

Evidence that scientists could save a lot of time and money simply by just studying golfers:

Recent research has indicated that our bodies actively fight to regain weight after experiencing substantial weight loss.  In essence the body doesn’t turn off the “Holy-shit-you’re-starving-me” switch.  As a result person A who has dropped 40 lbs. to a weight of 180 lbs. and person B who has been at a stable weight of 180 lbs. will have different experiences if they both adopt the diet and lifestyle that person B has been following. Person B will stay at equilibrium, but poor old person A will start gaining weight back.  In a real sense person A’s body is saying to itself, “Whoa, I have no idea what’s going on upstairs with management but now that I’m seeing some extra calories I putting some of this shit away in savings because things have been rough around here recently, let me tell you.” Well, folks, how is this any different than what happens to us when our handicaps drop?

When we try to lose strokes off our index we start practicing, which is the same thing as exercising, and we stop feeding ourselves the usual crappy interior monologue, which, in turn, is like junk food.  But if, after reducing our handicap, we decide to dial it back and just return to our normal amount of practice, the strokes start coming back and pretty soon the “Man, I suck” mixtape starts running once again and –whamo!– we’re back where we started, sporting a big, blubbery number once again.

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January 8, 2012

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The Butter Stick

Golfers love to tell stories.  It’s a bit of a necessity, actually.  Given that the action part of a round–the act of striking the ball so as to propel it towards its target–comprises only three to four minutes out of a four-hour experience, we’d better find a way to fill up all that time.

But not all stories and topics are created equal.  Equipment talk? Interesting only to the golf geeks among us. Great shots that you hit? Polite interest, but really not all that captivating.  Blow-up holes? Now, we’re getting somewhere, but there are those golfers who find them disturbing, like having somebody talking about engine malfunctions while you’re waiting to board a plane.

But everybody loves a sandbagger story. Everybody. It’s a universal thing.  Well, let me qualify that.  They probably make a sandbagger who isn’t a total sociopath uncomfortable.  They likely elicit a bit of “Heh heh heh” laughter and a quick move to shift the topic (“Hey how about those Niners?”) when there’s a lull in the conversation.

A good sandbagger story appeals to one of our most treasured, and psychologically delicious feelings, righteous indignation. (Cue Homer Simpson voice-over saying, “Hmmmmmmmm, righteous indignation.”)

So here’s my favorite sandbagger story of the past year.  Honestly, I wasn’t cataloging them.  This is just the best one.

The Butter Stick

The setting: My home course, Lake Merced Golf Club.

The situation: First round playoffs in the NCGA 12-man team competition.

The back story: We had won our division, or bracket or whatever, for the second consecutive year.  We take particular pride in finishing in front of the team from the Olympic Club, which is a little like having a small technical school with a predominantly Jewish and Asian student body beat Notre Dame in something other than a math competition.

Our opponent: Not going to give that out.  But as a side note, we had defeated this club last year in the first round.

Where I come in: I was playing with my buddy Don Wood. We were both playing as  11′s and our opponents are playing as 13′s.

First indication that something wasn’t right: Hard to pinpoint it exactly, but in the first couple holes there did seem to be an excessive amount of frustration being voiced by our opponents about shots and putts that wouldn’t look out of place in the games of most 13′s I’ve seen.

The first thunderbolt: Don’s opponent holes out from 220 yards (4 hybrid, in case you were wondering) for a double eagle on our par-five 9th hole. Now of course the improbably perfect shot can happen for any golfer whose ability is above a certain rudimentary level.  But let me put this particular shot in perspective.  This hole is our 13-handicap hole, so, if we had been playing a net Stableford round this would have garnered our worthy opponent the equivalent of a net triple eagle.  Last time I looked that possibility doesn’t exist in the known universe.  It’s like an 11 on the Richter scale.

Second warning sign: On the 10th hole my opponent hits a high fade from 176 yards out to eight feet below the pin on our number two handicap hole. Oh, that’s right: he got a stroke on that hole.  Oh, and one other thing: he was about to go back and hit another drive when I found his ball for him.  That’s how bad his lie was and how big a sucker I am.

The crowning moment, the best sandbagger moment of 2011: We’re now on the tee box of number 13, a narrow, testy little par-four that requires a precise drive. The fairway runs flat, then downhill and then up again to a green that does not hold shots particularly well, so there is a premium not only on accuracy but distance, since a straight but short drive leaves you an awkward downhill lie.  My guy instinctively pulls out his driver and heads towards the tee box, only to be advised by his partner, who had played a practice round at our course the day before, that driver was not the right call on this hole.  “Bring out the butter stick,” he says.

The butter stick?

Well it turns out that the b.s. is how my opponent refers to his 2-iron, which he proceeds to lace straight down the fairway and to a final resting place just on the uphill slope approaching the green.  So, the questions start queuing up in my head like planes on a bad day at LaGuardia:

1. How many 13′s carry a 2-iron? And this is an iron, mind you, not a 2-hybrid.  It would be great if I could say definitively that it was a blade, but my head was spinning and I was about to pass out, so I can’t add that as a final damning embellishment.

2. And then out of that tiny slice of humanity, how many of them have a freaking nickname for their 2-iron?

3. And if they do have a nickname for it, how many of them call it something like the “butter stick” as opposed to something like “The club that I don’t know why I carry around because I can’t hit it for shit”?

4. And finally, how many of those guys can stripe it 225 yards straight down the middle?

I think we all know the answer to this sequence of questions: nobody, none, zilch.  And in the end, that leads to the almost endearing quality of the sandbagger, namely the obvious and transparent nature of their malfeasance.  They’re almost childlike in their belief that nobody is going to notice.  The true caliber of their game will reveal itself, make no mistake.  They cannot disguise their skill while committing the crime, and while a series of perfectly struck approach shots certainly belies the mid-teens number that they’ve given as their handicap, the really precious clues are the things that they say, the comments and reactions that reveal what their expectations are of their game.  In the end, while I do begrudge them the money and the losses, I remain eternally grateful for giving me the gift that keeps on giving, the great sandbagger story.

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December 29, 2011

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Ends and oddness

A couple items for you all:

1. Hey did I mention that I wrote a book? It’s available on Amazon.  Just search for “Why We Golf.”

The Man, The legend

2. Today we mourn the passing of possibly the greatest golfer of all time: Kim Jong Il, a.k.a the Dear Leader of North Korea.  Surprised? He had been rumored to be sick for several years.  Oh, you meant the part about being the greatest golfer of all time.  Hey, according to the state press in North Korea, he routinely had three to four holes-in-one every time he played.  Let’s see Luke Donald do that.

3. Today I got an email from Golf Link selling a product called Golf Fuel.  It’s a pill.  It makes you a better golfer.  I have now officially entered the twilight zone.

4. Hey did I mention that my book is out?

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December 19, 2011

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I want a new drug

Let’s imagine that they’ve developed a new drug for golfers. It doesn’t allow you to hit perfect shots every time. I mean, come on. This isn’t a fairy tale, it’s a thought experiment, so work with me on this.  It just makes you better, much better.  Whatever deformity your shot shape had, it’s gone.  You’re flopping them out of the bunkers like Luke Donald. The putts start dropping.  I don’t have to belabor the point.  You get what I’m talking about.

The scientific name for the drug would be something like puredaballafren, but they’d market it as Puredriva or something like that.  It would be available in different dosages (the higher your index the bigger the pill) as well as Puredriva for daily use for retired guys.  It’s easy to visualize what the ads would look like, popping up on every commercial break on Golf Channel and sandwiched in between the ones for the boner and gout pills.  There would be lots of shots of douchey looking guys giving each other white dude high fives on greens with great scenic backdrops, slow motion shots of high draws hit from elevated tee boxes, balls rolling into cups.  Again, I’m sure you get the picture.

But, then of course, there’s a catch. Like any new drug, there’s the small print: all the side effects that the narrator tells you about while images of the groovy new golf lifestyle you’ll be enjoying thanks to Puredriva continue to parade across the screen.

So here’s the question: what side effects would you be willing to accept?

Let’s consider some of the possibilities:

The mythical four hour erection: We’ve all heard it’s a possibility with some other popular medications.  But I’ll admit that  I’d be willing to endure this, ah, hardship, in return for shooting in the seventies or even the sixties.  And if you’re thinking that a four hour hard-on is just going to, I don’t know, get in way out on the course, you clearly haven’t given this enough thought.  First off it would be a great teaching tool, so to speak.  Pushing your drives? Just check and see where your boner’s pointing at the end of your swing.  If it’s not lined up with your target line, well then you’re just not rotating your hips properly. And on top of that it’s a timing device.  Who needs a watch anymore when you’re out on the course? “Hey, Bob, I’ll tell you how slow those guys in front of us are. My boner’s getting soft and we’re only on the freaking fifteenth hole.”

Blackouts: I’m going to need some more information. Would this be out on the course, or some other setting, like home or the office, where it might be more convenient?

Blurry vision: Hey, if on almost every hole my score is the number that’s already printed on the scorecard, who needs clear vision?  Hell, I can keep track of something like “two under through fourteen ” in my head.

Nausea, diarrhea, constipation, vomiting: Let’s clear something up: I don’t get all of these at once do I? I mean it sounds like some of them would cancel each other out, right? Regardless, I’m just going to accept these as part of a two-fer: it’s a golf pill that helps keep your weight down!

Tremors, bleeding gums, nasal discharge, headaches, dry mouth, heart palpitations, itchy scalp, big oozing red sores on your forehead, persistent sensation of fire ants crawling just underneath your skin, vivid hallucinations, night sweats, alteration of your taste buds so that all food tastes like plain non-fat yogurt: Hey, I’ve just got one question: what did I shoot? That’s right! Next.

Death: Kind of the ultimate side effect.  But there’s dying and there’s dying.  There’s shooting a tidy little 68, coming home and hanging out with the wife, having a nice dinner with a good bottle of wine and then falling asleep and not waking up, and there’s a horribly drawn out painful, disfiguring decline.  Obviously the first alternative would be a bit of a shock for the old lady the next day (and if on a Sunday would, possibly, interfere with going to Rhythm and Motion), but not a bad way to go, don’t you think?

So, what side effects would you be willing to accept?

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December 16, 2011

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10,000 hours

The current number one on my list of People I Dislike For No Real Good Reason is this guy from Portland, Oregon who has set out to become a PGA tour professional by putting in 10,000 hours of practice and training.  Since I’m feeling sort of pissy today I thought I’d just list all the reasons why this guy bothers me:

1. The guy, who has a name, and it’s Dan McLaughlin, isn’t just planning to get on Tour.  His plan is to win a tournament.  And not some Nationwide event mind you.  No, he’s talking the PGA Tour.  And then catch this: once he wins, it’s Mission Accomplished time and he plans to move on to his next 10,000 hour program.   From this distance I can’t tell where the arrogance begins, the ignorance ends or where the sheer marketing chutzpah takes over.

2. He hadn’t played golf before starting his quest.  In fact he hadn’t even watched a tournament on TV.  I guess the game sounded easy to him.  Sucker.

3. He has freaking 10,000 hours available for this project.  That’s a lot of time. I can hate him just for that alone.

4. He’s been in Bloomberg Business Week, with his picture no less.  I haven’t, even without a picture.  Bloomberg Business Week mentioned his blog.  Still waiting for them to mention mine.

5. It appears that one of his first rounds ever was at Bandon Dunes.  Yeah, that’s what golf is like pretty much everywhere.

6. He is the poster boy for the school of thought that says, “Gosh a golly, you can just do anything in this world as long you put your mind to it.” Such nonsense.  Those of you who are not on Twitter miss out on a lot of good stuff, but you are also spared a daily barrage of inspirational quotes and exhortations to go out there and make your dreams come true.  I really believe that a lot of unnecessary unhappiness is spawned in the wake of failed efforts to become something special.

7. What’s so wrong with acknowledging talent?  Mastering something like golf is not like baking a cake: mix ingredients, apply heat for a set period of time, and voila, you’re one of the best in the world.  There’s a big difference between recognizing that all the greats had to work very hard to achieve their greatness, in other words that it’s not simply a matter of talent, and asserting that ALL it takes is effort.

8. Even at the crappy level at which we play, our golf games express something about ourselves, aside from our deficiencies in eye-hand coordination or flexibility.  Our personalities come through and McLaughlin’s formulaic approach ignores the reality that all golfers bring something to the game other than their accumulated hours of practice.  And the truly great golfers?  The game allows them to express something in themselves, something that revels in the endless variety of challenge that this game presents.  There’s artistry involved here.  I can’t imagine anybody presuming to say this: “Well I’m going to put in 10,000 hours learning to paint and once I’ve made my improvements to the Sistine Chapel, I think I’ll work on those unfinished symphonies those less efficient 19th century slackers left behind.”

Well enough on that guy.  Buy my book instead.  It’s on Amazon.  Just enter “Why We Golf” in the search bar.

 

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December 9, 2011

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Odds and Ends

Golfing with the candidates

We know Obama golfs, but as for the field of people who want his job, I have no idea who plays and who doesn’t.  But that shouldn’t stop us from imagining what the conversation would sound like if you were golfing with them:

Rick Perry: “Hey Rick, I kinda fell behind on the scoring here. What did you get on the last three holes? …What’s that? Okay, got it. But that’s just two, what about the third?”

Mitt Romney: “Mitt, bro, you are just an artist with that lob wedge.  The way you just flip it under the ball and flop it on the green.  There isn’t a tight position out here where you haven’t flopped your way out of it.”

Ron Paul: “That’s quite a bag you’ve got there. How many clubs is that anyway? Oh, twenty you say? Hey no worries, that’s cool. I hear you. I mean why should some regulatory tyrant interfere with your right to bear arms?”

Rick Santorum: “Oh sorry I didn’t see you there.  Really, I didn’t know you were still playing.”

Michelle Bachmann:  “What’s that? You’re saying a sport that involves stroking and cleaning little white balls promotes a gay lifestyle? Who told you that? Oh, of course: your husband.”

Herman Cain: “What’s with the three digit index? Sounds like you’re a ten to me.”

Jon Huntsman:  “This is a practice round for you, right?”

Newt Gingrich: “I’m sure he’s learning the value of a good day’s work, but just how old is your caddy? Eight?”

Way past their shelf life

It’s the season so I’m making a list and checking it twice.  Only this is a list of expressions or tag lines about the game that are way past their expiration date:

“A good walk spoiled”  That’s dog ownership, not golf.  I don’t walk off the 18th with a bag of animal shit in my hand.

“Drive for show, putt for dough” They’ve done the stats and the shots that can really penalize you are the ones far away from the hole.  Really.  If you don’t believe me, read my book.  Think about it this way: when was the last time you were penalized stroke and distance for a putt?

“Same guy” (As in the comment made after a provisional tee shot splits the fairway.) No, not really.  That second ball was struck by somebody who just learned a valuable lesson and is now applying it.  For just a brief moment he was a changed man.  The other guy will be back soon, don’t worry.

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December 6, 2011

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