by Michael Pisani,
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UNITED STATES, Dec 21 — I started trying to play golf in 1975 while stationed overseas. I, like Phil Mickelson, am right handed but play golf as a lefty. There the similarity ends.
One thing is sure
I
started trying to play golf in 1975 while stationed overseas. I, like Phil Mickelson, am right handed but play golf as a lefty. There the similarity ends. I played on and off for many years, and then in 1982 began playing about once every week or two with some gentlemen I worked with. Our schedule gave us every other Friday off and we normally played a round of golf, weather permitting.
Our foursome had two players who were quite good, single digit handicappers and a third spot shared by two or three other players who were somewhat better or about the same as I was. I would say that my average score for the next few years was about 100 to 105. I could hit the ball fairly well sometimes, but had several “issues”, not the least of which was a pronounced slice. This phenomenon was worse on drives, but showed up with every club but the putter at random moments. Other interesting swing results were thin shots, fat shots, an occasional whiff or two, and topping shots with some regularity.
I retired in 2009, and began playing with two of the original foursome on a weekly basis. I now average about 96 on the course we play the most, and carry a 29 handicap. I have seen a marked improvement in ball striking but obviously have a lot to do before I get into the teens, which I consider a reasonable aspiration given my age.
People have asked me why I like playing golf so much, and I usually just tell them that it is a lot of fun and let it go with that. I don’t think that is really the whole answer however. It is, of course, fun for me. But, playing poker is also fun for me, and fishing is too, but neither poker nor fishing hold the fascination of golf. I often change my schedule to accommodate our weekly outings, and missing a week is not something I like to do. So, there must be something more here, something that appeals to a basic need in me.
Golfers who read this will readily understand it and see nothing unusual. To those who see golf on television and wonder what all the fuss is about, it is a little more obscure. I mean, really, how hard can it be? You have a ball, either sitting on a peg or on the ground, perfectly still. You have a large implement called a club with a large metal or (less frequently now) wooden head at least four or more times larger than the ball on the end which you simply swing at the ball and propel it along its way. Then, on a closely mowed patch of grass called a green, you simply hit that ball, into a hole nearly three times as big as the ball…really, how hard is that?
Golfers know…in agonizingly excruciating detail how hard that is…and how amazingly satisfying that unmistakable sound of the ball hitting the bottom of the cup is. I know there are a lot of things out there that people find satisfying, but holing a fifteen foot downhill sliding putt on a lightning fast green for a par save is right up there for some of us.
There are undoubtedly many, many reasons why people play the game, and they are individualistic to be sure. In my case, I have some inkling as to why I find the pastime so engaging. First, it is a sport that pits my abilities alone against a standard. I play to equal or better par, a number representing what the expected number of strokes should be taken to move the ball from the tee to and into the hole. There are usually no expectations of others depending on me for their outcomes as in team sports, so any deficiencies are mine alone and only my performance is being graded. I am not and never have been very coordinated or athletic. Team sports therefore, created a certain amount of anxiety for me, adding others expectations to my own. I did not play them.
Then, there are the golf courses. They are all, in their own right, beautiful. In fact, I have been fortunate enough to play on some truly strikingly pretty golf courses. In addition to their visually appealing nature, they also hold another quality. While they all have nine or eighteen holes, and all are played with the same equipment, using the same rules, they are all different in character and difficulty. In addition, if you play a round on a given course in the morning, and play another round immediately after, on the same course, on the same day, every hole will play differently; it is amazing.
Then there are those rules. It has been said that you can measure the character of a person by the way he or she plays golf. I not only firmly believe that, but have seen it proven time after time after time. I haven’t played golf with everybody, but those with whom I have played and who I know fairly well, will prove this very easily. Do we, on an occasional basis, move the ball from a tree root or other situation that might hurt us or the club? Yes. Do we, however, try and adhere to the fundamental “play it as it lies” and all the other rules? Yes, and sometimes that can be really, really funny! But, we do it because it is expected and t is right. To do less cheats the game and ourselves.
So, the game is hard; it has strict rules; the courses are a factor; the weather also plays a major role and I am often the subject of great amusement to my fellow competitors, who themselves are locked in the same struggles as am I. Why then, do look forward to every game? Why do I play in forty degree temperatures, rain and twenty-five mile an hour winds? Why do I play in ninety degree heat?
There is probably no one, definitive answer. But, for every ten shots that you slice, top, chili dip, skull or miss, there is that one; the drive that sails down the middle of the fairway as far as you can hit it; the fairway wood that curves gracefully to the front of the green and bounces on to roll within six feet of the hole; the short iron that drops on the green and backs up to pin high; that fifteen foot putt. That is why we keep coming back. We seek the one good shot and dismiss the ten bad.
The difference between Phil and me? He has ten good ones to one bad one, I have it the other way round. Percentage wise, I’m only about 35% worse than he is. If we were to play head to head, with my 29 shots, I could shoot 100, four over my average and I would card a net 71. Phil would have to shoot only one over his average to tie, his average or better to win. Averages being what they are, either of us could win….might depend on the course. Might depend on the weather. Might depend on how either of us was feeling that day.
One thing is sure. The next week, I’ll be out there with my friends, hitting good shots and bad, and talking about how I played with Phil.
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