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Authors: Carl Hiaasen
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always keep another putter on the side,” he says, lowering his voice. “She wouldn’t have to know about it.”
“It doesn’t seem right.”
“Keep it in your locker out at the clubhouse. She’ll never find out,” he says.
Just thinking about other putters makes me feel guilty. The Scotty Cameron is flawless and true, and I feel bound by loyalty. Yet there’s no denying that a certain restless tension has crept into our relationship.
De-Grooving the Waggle
O ne day I opened my locker and found a book titled
Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect,
by Dr. Bob Rotella. It had been placed there by a well-meaning caddy who, after watching me on the practice range, decided I was a head case.
Rotella is a sports psychologist who preaches positive thinking, calm acceptance and something called “fun.” In the golf world he has attained guru status, thanks to accolades from Tom Kite and other successful pros.
I pored through the whole book, dog-earing pages. One of the most intriguing chapters is titled “Thriving Under Pressure,” in which Rotella deconstructs the act of choking—a syndrome with which I am crushingly familiar.
According to Rotella, “A golfer chokes when he lets anger, doubt, fear or some other extraneous factor distract him before a shot.”
Here, I thought, is the seed of the problem. Anger, doubt and fear are essential ingredients of my golfing philosophy.
Nervousness is different, Rotella explains. Nervousness can be good. He recounts that basketball legend Bill Russell always felt more confident about winning if he tossed his cookies before a big game. (Although I’ve never vomited before hitting a golf shot, I often feel like doing it afterwards.)
Rotella goes on to compare nerves on the golf course with what you feel before having sex with someone for the first time. “If it didn’t make you nervous,” he writes, “it wouldn’t be so gratifying. In fact, it might be a little boring. Ask any prostitute.” (The next time I see one on the driving range, I will!)
Toward the end of the book, Rotella distills his formula for winning golf into about three dozen rules about courage, confidence, concentration, composure, patience, practice, persistence, potential and, of course, the elusive f-word: fun.
“On the first tee,” he writes, “a golfer must expect only two things of himself: to have fun, and to focus his mind properly on every shot.”
Gee, is that all?
Admittedly, much of what Rotella says makes sense; most golf books do. I now own a shelfful of them, and a handicap that flutters up and down like a runaway kite.
Golf books and golf magazines sell like crazy because every player is searching for the formula, the secret, the code, the grail—how do I conquer this impossible, godforsaken game?
And the more you read, the more hopelessly muddled you become. After digesting an article by David Leadbetter advocating an early cocking of the wrists on the backswing, I came upon the following quote from the late Byron Nelson:
“Make a takeway with no wrist break, and you’ll like what happens through impact.”
Now what? Choose between Leadbetter, tutor of champions, or Nelson, the only guy to win eleven consecutive PGA tournaments?
Because no two experts play, teach or analyze golf the same way, the instructionals are often contradictory and vexing.
About a year into my relapse, I bought a copy of
Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons, The Modern Fundamentals of Golf,
written in 1957 with the great Herbert Warren Wind. It was this classic text that a non-golfer named Larry Nelson picked up at the relatively advanced age of twenty-one, after returning from combat duty in Vietnam. By assiduously applying Hogan’s methods, Nelson taught himself to play, turned pro, and went on to win two PGA Championships and a U.S. Open.
I am neither twenty-one years old nor blessed with Nelson’s natural athleticism. Few amateurs are. Yet, early in his book, Hogan matter-of-factly tells of a
“It doesn’t seem right.”
“Keep it in your locker out at the clubhouse. She’ll never find out,” he says.
Just thinking about other putters makes me feel guilty. The Scotty Cameron is flawless and true, and I feel bound by loyalty. Yet there’s no denying that a certain restless tension has crept into our relationship.
De-Grooving the Waggle
O ne day I opened my locker and found a book titled
Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect,
by Dr. Bob Rotella. It had been placed there by a well-meaning caddy who, after watching me on the practice range, decided I was a head case.
Rotella is a sports psychologist who preaches positive thinking, calm acceptance and something called “fun.” In the golf world he has attained guru status, thanks to accolades from Tom Kite and other successful pros.
I pored through the whole book, dog-earing pages. One of the most intriguing chapters is titled “Thriving Under Pressure,” in which Rotella deconstructs the act of choking—a syndrome with which I am crushingly familiar.
According to Rotella, “A golfer chokes when he lets anger, doubt, fear or some other extraneous factor distract him before a shot.”
Here, I thought, is the seed of the problem. Anger, doubt and fear are essential ingredients of my golfing philosophy.
Nervousness is different, Rotella explains. Nervousness can be good. He recounts that basketball legend Bill Russell always felt more confident about winning if he tossed his cookies before a big game. (Although I’ve never vomited before hitting a golf shot, I often feel like doing it afterwards.)
Rotella goes on to compare nerves on the golf course with what you feel before having sex with someone for the first time. “If it didn’t make you nervous,” he writes, “it wouldn’t be so gratifying. In fact, it might be a little boring. Ask any prostitute.” (The next time I see one on the driving range, I will!)
Toward the end of the book, Rotella distills his formula for winning golf into about three dozen rules about courage, confidence, concentration, composure, patience, practice, persistence, potential and, of course, the elusive f-word: fun.
“On the first tee,” he writes, “a golfer must expect only two things of himself: to have fun, and to focus his mind properly on every shot.”
Gee, is that all?
Admittedly, much of what Rotella says makes sense; most golf books do. I now own a shelfful of them, and a handicap that flutters up and down like a runaway kite.
Golf books and golf magazines sell like crazy because every player is searching for the formula, the secret, the code, the grail—how do I conquer this impossible, godforsaken game?
And the more you read, the more hopelessly muddled you become. After digesting an article by David Leadbetter advocating an early cocking of the wrists on the backswing, I came upon the following quote from the late Byron Nelson:
“Make a takeway with no wrist break, and you’ll like what happens through impact.”
Now what? Choose between Leadbetter, tutor of champions, or Nelson, the only guy to win eleven consecutive PGA tournaments?
Because no two experts play, teach or analyze golf the same way, the instructionals are often contradictory and vexing.
About a year into my relapse, I bought a copy of
Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons, The Modern Fundamentals of Golf,
written in 1957 with the great Herbert Warren Wind. It was this classic text that a non-golfer named Larry Nelson picked up at the relatively advanced age of twenty-one, after returning from combat duty in Vietnam. By assiduously applying Hogan’s methods, Nelson taught himself to play, turned pro, and went on to win two PGA Championships and a U.S. Open.
I am neither twenty-one years old nor blessed with Nelson’s natural athleticism. Few amateurs are. Yet, early in his book, Hogan matter-of-factly tells of a
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