Golf.
Just the word alone stirs up a myriad of emotions inside those who have any level of passion for the game. Deep within the heart and soul of anyone who plays golf with any regularity lies a love hate relationship with the game. It almost becomes a form of self torture, the way we go out and play this game called golf, which, as Winston Churchill put it "is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into a even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose." It's not easy, and it's not supposed to be. That's the beauty of it, and that's the curse of it.
More than any other sport, golf lends itself to journeys of discovery. What one discovers is mostly up to the individual, however. I happen to love the game... and I believe firmly and unquestionably that it is the greatest game, and I believe this for several reasons.
1. Golf is played on courses that are as varied and diverse as they are beautiful and magnificent. Name another sport that is played on a field that changes from place to place to the degree that golf courses do. I can't. The game is different every time you play because the field of play changes... even if you play often on the same course. I have played on many courses throughout the country and I never tire of the different styles and beauty of each course I play.
Look at the fields other sports take place on. Baseball fields are all the same, football and basketball are played i basically the same defined spaces. Bowling alleys, tennis courts, soccer fields, hockey rinks... all the same. Even horse shoe pit dimensions are regulated. The venues may be a little different from location to location, but the actual playing fields are carbon copies of each other. This is not true in golf, and this adds to the beauty of the game.
Sheri bought a book for me this past Christmas called "Golf Courses of the World" that is made up of 365 pages (one for each day of the year, although it's not really a calendar) of absolutely stunning photographs of different golf courses with a short biography and description of the golf course pictured. I look at these photos and marvel at the artistry and the vision that it must have taken to turn a raw piece of land into such a rich and lush patch of greenery.
Golf courses, for all of their beauty and tranquility, cannot be tamed. Lou Graham said "If you try to fight the course, it will beat you." The course is as much a player in each round as you, your swing, your nerves, and your equipment. And they are infinitely more desirable to the senses that a bowling alley or tennis court.
2. Golf is a game of integrity, more so that any other game I know of. I do not remember the last time a baseball player called a strike on himself when he checked his swing. I've never heard of a basketball player who traveled when going to the hoop, stop and call traveling on himself. I can't even imagine a football player who trapped a catch and when the officials did not blow their whistles stopped and told the referees that he did not catch the ball. These things do not happen in other sports, but golf is different.
Back in October of 2005, Paula Creamer finished her round in a tie for 23rd in the Office Depot Championship held at Trump National in California, and would have collected a check for $11,859. However, after the round Creamer realized that she had switched out her 5 iron for a 3-wood to complete her round on Monday morning.
Under the rules of golf, generally, players are not allowed to switch clubs within the same "round." (However, there are exceptions.) Because of the round being suspended on Sunday night and requiring a Monday finish, the final "round" of golf never ended. So when Paula switched the clubs in her bag, she, I believe, would have been penalized 2 strokes a hole up to 4 total strokes for each hole she played with the new 3-wood. But in this case, Paula already had signed her card and was on her way home. As a result, she was disqualified!! Unfortunately for Paula, this mistake cost her a bit of shopping money and at least travel expenses.
The fact that Paula turned herself in is what makes golf great! Golf is a game of integrity where players consistently call penalties on themselves, when players violate the rules. One example that comes to mind was Jeff Maggert in the Masters a few years ago (when Weir won), and Jeff hit the ball out of the bunker that came back and hit him in the chest. The broadcasters commentating on the event did not realize that the ball had even hit him, and if there were not television cameras allowing slow motion replay, I doubt that anyone would have ever noticed. But Maggert, being honest, called a 2 stroke penalty on himself and again made the rules of the game and integrity of the sport great. A person who can't be honest with themselves on the golf course is the person to keep a watchful eye on in business.
3. Golf is a game that is not so much played against an opponent, as it is against one's self. I can play a round of golf alone, or with four other people, but either way, it's still just me and that little white ball. I once missed a four foot putt on the 18th green, straight and slightly uphill, the put that I would normally make 99 out of 100 times, but I yipped it so bad that I missed it 2 feet to the left. Why? Because that one putt would have doubled up $225 that my opponent was already down to me.
Thinking about that one putt still makes me sick to my stomach. I could blame many factors for that miss... there was a sudden breeze, someone on the green moved, someone else made a noise, a bird made a noise, some kid in the next county made a noise, the was an earthquake in California that shifted the green just enough to throw my ball off course as soon as I struck it perfectly, or any other such feeble excuse. The truth of the matter is... I choked. It wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last. Golf can create tremendous pressure in the body and soul of the golfer. Some pressures are from nature, some come from within, and some are self imposed. Lee Trevino said once "You don't know what pressure is until you play for five bucks with only two bucks in your pocket."
It wasn't Don, my opponent, that made me miss the putt. In tennis, the aim is to hit the ball where your opponent can't return it. In baseball, the goal is, as Wee Willie Keeler so elegantly put it, "to hit it where they ain't." Football is brute force against brute force to muscle the ball into the opponent's territory. But golf, is played in the mind. The great Bobby Jones said "Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch course, the space between your ears." Man, did I ever learn that lesson that day!
There is much to be learned on a golf course, other than the game itself.
Quoting Bobby Jones again, "Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots - but you have to play the ball where it lies." Anyone who reads my blog knows that I love a good metaphor, and golf surely fits into that category. Adding to the metaphor at hand, Peter Jacobsen once said "One of the most fascinating things about golf is how it reflects the cycle of life. No matter what you shoot - the next day you have to go back to the first tee and begin all over again and make yourself into something."
I can only speak for myself, but learning how to handle adversity on the golf course has helped me in dealing with it off the course as well. Learning to be a good sportsman has come to me more on the golf course than anywhere else. Golf is full of every emotion that can be experienced in our everyday lives. Disappointment, anger, frustration, feelings of inadequacy, joy, excitement, wavering nerves, up one minute and down the next, tranquility, inner peace, inner turmoil, and pure happiness.
This is Lynn playing a game against no one else but Lynn. Talk about a journey of discoveries.
4. Golf is a tranquil sport. I find that as I get older, I search for and relish the quieter moments in life. Golf, by its very nature, provides that level of serenity. I especially enjoy golf when I'm alone. The subtle sounds of the breeze in the trees, the aromatic smells of the clean air and freshly cut grass, the stunning beauty of the manicured fairways and greens. I love the sounds of silence broken only by the crack of the club hitting the ball. I never fatigue of hearing the ball drop into the cup. I love to walk a golf course, even on occasion when I'm just walking and not playing.
5. Golf can never truly be mastered. Ask Arnold. Ask Jack. Ask even Tiger. Ask any of the other thousands of professional golfers, or the millions of duffers, scuffers, and weekend warriors who play this game if the game can be conquered. It can't. Ask Gay Brewer who said "Golf is a game you can never get too good at. You can improve, but you can never get to where you master the game." That pretty much makes my point, doesn't it?
I know of no other sport in which one must be in such total harmony with his body. The swing is the basic mechanical necessity of the game, and the swing is a minor player when compared to the mental and emotional components that are required. Listen to the advice Bagger Vance gave to Junah in "The Legend of Bagger Vance."
"Put your eyes on Bobby Jones... Look at his practice swing, almost like he's searchin' for something... Then he finds it... Watch how he settle hisself right into the middle of it, feel that focus... He got a lot of shots he could choose from... Duffs and tops and skulls, there's only ONE shot that's in perfect harmony with the field... One shot that's his, authentic shot, and that shot is gonna choose him... There's a perfect shot out there tryin' to find each and every one of us... All we got to do is get ourselves out of its way, to let it choose us... Can't see that flag as some dragon you got to slay... You got to look with soft eyes... See the place where the tides and the seasons and the turnin' of the Earth, all come together... where everything that is, becomes one... You got to seek that place with your soul Junuh... Seek it with your hands don't think about it... Feel it... Your hands is wiser than your head ever gonna be... Now I can't take you there Junuh... Just hopes I can help you find a way... Just you... that ball... that flag... and all you are..."
Wow... pure beauty, this game of golf.
6. Golf can be played by anyone. The United States Golf Association ( http://www.usga.org/ ), is a non-profit organization run by golfers for the benefit of golfers. Programs all over the world give players of every age, race, gender, and social standing access to this great game. Players like the Golden Bear Jack Nicklaus, the Merry Mex Lee Trevino, and my dad made me want to play the game when I was young, and kids of all races look to players like Tiger as a role model, as do lefties look to Phil Mickelson.
When I was a youngster, my father played in local golf tournaments all across Texas. I loved to go on these trips with him and follow him around the course. I learned the non-playing part of the game by watching him and others and how they conducted themselves on the course. I was a good student of the game, learning quickly when to be still and quiet, where I should stand to be out of the way, how and where and when to mark the ball on the green... that kind of stuff. I also got a few caddying gigs now and then, making some serious coin for a kid of 12 or 13 years of age.
I started playing golf when a friend of my dad's, Pat Derrick, won some irons in a golf tournament in El Campo, Texas. He gave me his old set of Royal clubs and I started playing at a local par three course, riding my bike to get there most of the time and with my bag of clubs hanging from my shoulder. I had no lessons, other than from my dad, and I was mostly a duffer, hitting just enough decent shots to keep me coming back for more. A lot like my game in recent years. When my family moved to Quail Valley, my father joined the country club and I started taking lessons. I played the par three course, the 9 hole El Dorado course, and the 18 hole La Quinta course.
When I was about 14 or 15, my friends and I would sneak out of our houses at night with which bags to collect golf balls (mine was an empty pillow case), and we would go to one of the many water holes and swim most of the night, diving and feeling around with out bare feet for golf balls that didn't quite make it to the greens. I'd take my treasure back home and clean the balls in our kitchen sink with some soap and a scrub brush purchased just for the task, and as most of the balls were new, I never had to buy golf balls as a youth to play the game.
I have never hit a hole in one. I came close once on a par 3 when my ball rolled up and hit the flagstick, bouncing mere inches away from the hole. I have hit in from 150 yards out, chipped in from off the green, made putts that seemed impossible to get even close, and it's those moments that keep me coming back. I have also missed easy putts, (see the example above), skulled, topped, sliced, hooked, shanked, and completely missed the ball. I have hit the middle of the green from 200 yards out and then couldn't reach the next green from 3 feet off the putting surface. I once hit a ball that barely clipped the top branch of a tree that I was trying to hit over, bounced straight down hitting a rock on the cart path, and bounced right back into my hand about 75 yards back from the tree. I never had to move an inch.
Moments like that become memories that tend to stay with me. I remember the course I was playing, I remember the hole it happened on, I remember with whom I was enjoying this round of golf. I also remember how my dad laughed at this impossible shot I had just made.
7. Any player can be competitive with any other player. The USGA Handicap System™ enables golfers of all skill levels to compete on an equitable basis. I could go out and play with Tiger and possibly even win the match, if given enough of a handicap... probably around 5 or 6 strokes a hole. It's an inner battle with which we as golfers struggle to overcome... we want to be known as the best, but shooting lower scores lowers our handicaps thus making it easier for others to outscore us next time out. Am I the only one who sees the irony in this?
The dramatic, exotic, and punishing beauty of the course, the inner struggle to gain an impossible perfection, the peace and tranquility of being alone with one's own thoughts for a few hours, the perspective on life that the game offers, the competitiveness of a four foot putt for $225, and the endless variety of people that one can meet on the golf course is why I play the game.
One more thought for Ben, Brian, Kip, Tyson, Chris and any other dentist who has dared to take up the game... E.V. Knox said "Golf is played with a number of striking implements more intricate in shape than those used in any form of recreation except dentistry." Hmmmmm. Makes you think, doesn't it?
Mark Twain described golf as "A good walk spoiled." I rather view it as a good walk made better.
No, golf is not just a great game... it's the greatest game.
I will see you on the links.
Until next time...
Sheri bought a book for me this past Christmas called "Golf Courses of the World" that is made up of 365 pages (one for each day of the year, although it's not really a calendar) of absolutely stunning photographs of different golf courses with a short biography and description of the golf course pictured. I look at these photos and marvel at the artistry and the vision that it must have taken to turn a raw piece of land into such a rich and lush patch of greenery.
Golf courses, for all of their beauty and tranquility, cannot be tamed. Lou Graham said "If you try to fight the course, it will beat you." The course is as much a player in each round as you, your swing, your nerves, and your equipment. And they are infinitely more desirable to the senses that a bowling alley or tennis court.
2. Golf is a game of integrity, more so that any other game I know of. I do not remember the last time a baseball player called a strike on himself when he checked his swing. I've never heard of a basketball player who traveled when going to the hoop, stop and call traveling on himself. I can't even imagine a football player who trapped a catch and when the officials did not blow their whistles stopped and told the referees that he did not catch the ball. These things do not happen in other sports, but golf is different.
Back in October of 2005, Paula Creamer finished her round in a tie for 23rd in the Office Depot Championship held at Trump National in California, and would have collected a check for $11,859. However, after the round Creamer realized that she had switched out her 5 iron for a 3-wood to complete her round on Monday morning.
Under the rules of golf, generally, players are not allowed to switch clubs within the same "round." (However, there are exceptions.) Because of the round being suspended on Sunday night and requiring a Monday finish, the final "round" of golf never ended. So when Paula switched the clubs in her bag, she, I believe, would have been penalized 2 strokes a hole up to 4 total strokes for each hole she played with the new 3-wood. But in this case, Paula already had signed her card and was on her way home. As a result, she was disqualified!! Unfortunately for Paula, this mistake cost her a bit of shopping money and at least travel expenses.
The fact that Paula turned herself in is what makes golf great! Golf is a game of integrity where players consistently call penalties on themselves, when players violate the rules. One example that comes to mind was Jeff Maggert in the Masters a few years ago (when Weir won), and Jeff hit the ball out of the bunker that came back and hit him in the chest. The broadcasters commentating on the event did not realize that the ball had even hit him, and if there were not television cameras allowing slow motion replay, I doubt that anyone would have ever noticed. But Maggert, being honest, called a 2 stroke penalty on himself and again made the rules of the game and integrity of the sport great. A person who can't be honest with themselves on the golf course is the person to keep a watchful eye on in business.
3. Golf is a game that is not so much played against an opponent, as it is against one's self. I can play a round of golf alone, or with four other people, but either way, it's still just me and that little white ball. I once missed a four foot putt on the 18th green, straight and slightly uphill, the put that I would normally make 99 out of 100 times, but I yipped it so bad that I missed it 2 feet to the left. Why? Because that one putt would have doubled up $225 that my opponent was already down to me.
Thinking about that one putt still makes me sick to my stomach. I could blame many factors for that miss... there was a sudden breeze, someone on the green moved, someone else made a noise, a bird made a noise, some kid in the next county made a noise, the was an earthquake in California that shifted the green just enough to throw my ball off course as soon as I struck it perfectly, or any other such feeble excuse. The truth of the matter is... I choked. It wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last. Golf can create tremendous pressure in the body and soul of the golfer. Some pressures are from nature, some come from within, and some are self imposed. Lee Trevino said once "You don't know what pressure is until you play for five bucks with only two bucks in your pocket."
It wasn't Don, my opponent, that made me miss the putt. In tennis, the aim is to hit the ball where your opponent can't return it. In baseball, the goal is, as Wee Willie Keeler so elegantly put it, "to hit it where they ain't." Football is brute force against brute force to muscle the ball into the opponent's territory. But golf, is played in the mind. The great Bobby Jones said "Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch course, the space between your ears." Man, did I ever learn that lesson that day!
There is much to be learned on a golf course, other than the game itself.
Quoting Bobby Jones again, "Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots - but you have to play the ball where it lies." Anyone who reads my blog knows that I love a good metaphor, and golf surely fits into that category. Adding to the metaphor at hand, Peter Jacobsen once said "One of the most fascinating things about golf is how it reflects the cycle of life. No matter what you shoot - the next day you have to go back to the first tee and begin all over again and make yourself into something."
I can only speak for myself, but learning how to handle adversity on the golf course has helped me in dealing with it off the course as well. Learning to be a good sportsman has come to me more on the golf course than anywhere else. Golf is full of every emotion that can be experienced in our everyday lives. Disappointment, anger, frustration, feelings of inadequacy, joy, excitement, wavering nerves, up one minute and down the next, tranquility, inner peace, inner turmoil, and pure happiness.
This is Lynn playing a game against no one else but Lynn. Talk about a journey of discoveries.
4. Golf is a tranquil sport. I find that as I get older, I search for and relish the quieter moments in life. Golf, by its very nature, provides that level of serenity. I especially enjoy golf when I'm alone. The subtle sounds of the breeze in the trees, the aromatic smells of the clean air and freshly cut grass, the stunning beauty of the manicured fairways and greens. I love the sounds of silence broken only by the crack of the club hitting the ball. I never fatigue of hearing the ball drop into the cup. I love to walk a golf course, even on occasion when I'm just walking and not playing.
5. Golf can never truly be mastered. Ask Arnold. Ask Jack. Ask even Tiger. Ask any of the other thousands of professional golfers, or the millions of duffers, scuffers, and weekend warriors who play this game if the game can be conquered. It can't. Ask Gay Brewer who said "Golf is a game you can never get too good at. You can improve, but you can never get to where you master the game." That pretty much makes my point, doesn't it?
I know of no other sport in which one must be in such total harmony with his body. The swing is the basic mechanical necessity of the game, and the swing is a minor player when compared to the mental and emotional components that are required. Listen to the advice Bagger Vance gave to Junah in "The Legend of Bagger Vance."
"Put your eyes on Bobby Jones... Look at his practice swing, almost like he's searchin' for something... Then he finds it... Watch how he settle hisself right into the middle of it, feel that focus... He got a lot of shots he could choose from... Duffs and tops and skulls, there's only ONE shot that's in perfect harmony with the field... One shot that's his, authentic shot, and that shot is gonna choose him... There's a perfect shot out there tryin' to find each and every one of us... All we got to do is get ourselves out of its way, to let it choose us... Can't see that flag as some dragon you got to slay... You got to look with soft eyes... See the place where the tides and the seasons and the turnin' of the Earth, all come together... where everything that is, becomes one... You got to seek that place with your soul Junuh... Seek it with your hands don't think about it... Feel it... Your hands is wiser than your head ever gonna be... Now I can't take you there Junuh... Just hopes I can help you find a way... Just you... that ball... that flag... and all you are..."
Wow... pure beauty, this game of golf.
6. Golf can be played by anyone. The United States Golf Association ( http://www.usga.org/ ), is a non-profit organization run by golfers for the benefit of golfers. Programs all over the world give players of every age, race, gender, and social standing access to this great game. Players like the Golden Bear Jack Nicklaus, the Merry Mex Lee Trevino, and my dad made me want to play the game when I was young, and kids of all races look to players like Tiger as a role model, as do lefties look to Phil Mickelson.
When I was a youngster, my father played in local golf tournaments all across Texas. I loved to go on these trips with him and follow him around the course. I learned the non-playing part of the game by watching him and others and how they conducted themselves on the course. I was a good student of the game, learning quickly when to be still and quiet, where I should stand to be out of the way, how and where and when to mark the ball on the green... that kind of stuff. I also got a few caddying gigs now and then, making some serious coin for a kid of 12 or 13 years of age.
I started playing golf when a friend of my dad's, Pat Derrick, won some irons in a golf tournament in El Campo, Texas. He gave me his old set of Royal clubs and I started playing at a local par three course, riding my bike to get there most of the time and with my bag of clubs hanging from my shoulder. I had no lessons, other than from my dad, and I was mostly a duffer, hitting just enough decent shots to keep me coming back for more. A lot like my game in recent years. When my family moved to Quail Valley, my father joined the country club and I started taking lessons. I played the par three course, the 9 hole El Dorado course, and the 18 hole La Quinta course.
When I was about 14 or 15, my friends and I would sneak out of our houses at night with which bags to collect golf balls (mine was an empty pillow case), and we would go to one of the many water holes and swim most of the night, diving and feeling around with out bare feet for golf balls that didn't quite make it to the greens. I'd take my treasure back home and clean the balls in our kitchen sink with some soap and a scrub brush purchased just for the task, and as most of the balls were new, I never had to buy golf balls as a youth to play the game.
I have never hit a hole in one. I came close once on a par 3 when my ball rolled up and hit the flagstick, bouncing mere inches away from the hole. I have hit in from 150 yards out, chipped in from off the green, made putts that seemed impossible to get even close, and it's those moments that keep me coming back. I have also missed easy putts, (see the example above), skulled, topped, sliced, hooked, shanked, and completely missed the ball. I have hit the middle of the green from 200 yards out and then couldn't reach the next green from 3 feet off the putting surface. I once hit a ball that barely clipped the top branch of a tree that I was trying to hit over, bounced straight down hitting a rock on the cart path, and bounced right back into my hand about 75 yards back from the tree. I never had to move an inch.
Moments like that become memories that tend to stay with me. I remember the course I was playing, I remember the hole it happened on, I remember with whom I was enjoying this round of golf. I also remember how my dad laughed at this impossible shot I had just made.
7. Any player can be competitive with any other player. The USGA Handicap System™ enables golfers of all skill levels to compete on an equitable basis. I could go out and play with Tiger and possibly even win the match, if given enough of a handicap... probably around 5 or 6 strokes a hole. It's an inner battle with which we as golfers struggle to overcome... we want to be known as the best, but shooting lower scores lowers our handicaps thus making it easier for others to outscore us next time out. Am I the only one who sees the irony in this?
The dramatic, exotic, and punishing beauty of the course, the inner struggle to gain an impossible perfection, the peace and tranquility of being alone with one's own thoughts for a few hours, the perspective on life that the game offers, the competitiveness of a four foot putt for $225, and the endless variety of people that one can meet on the golf course is why I play the game.
One more thought for Ben, Brian, Kip, Tyson, Chris and any other dentist who has dared to take up the game... E.V. Knox said "Golf is played with a number of striking implements more intricate in shape than those used in any form of recreation except dentistry." Hmmmmm. Makes you think, doesn't it?
Mark Twain described golf as "A good walk spoiled." I rather view it as a good walk made better.
No, golf is not just a great game... it's the greatest game.
I will see you on the links.
Until next time...
1 comment:
Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac... It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!
Just be the ball, be the ball, be the ball.
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