“First time out?” he asked with a chuckle, soon to be followed by a broad grin that traveled from the west coast of his left ear to the east coast of his right lobe as he passed in front of me and headed down the path to the parking lot, his golf bag slung over his shoulder.
“How did you guess?” I hollered after him, as I painstakingly peeled the plastic off each of my twelve Wilson club heads while standing on the steps of the pro shop.
It was bad enough that it had taken me such a long time to get to a golf course; yet here I was, five minutes before my first lesson, and I’m fumbling around with the factory-sealed packaging. This can’t be the way Nicklaus started, I thought.
Worse yet, as I stood there in the freezing cold on this windy Friday afternoon in February, dressed more like a spectator who had just returned from the bobsledding venue in Vancouver than an aspiring golfer, I could already hear the guys at Easy J’s D.C. lounge rolling with laughter as their buddy regaled them with alcohol-embellished tales of "Rube the Left-Handed Rookie."
“Bartender,” I could imagine my smiling friend calling out later this afternoon, “Another round for my friends so we can toast the next Phil Mickelson.”
When I decided to give up running and men’s basketball because of multiple ankle surgeries several years ago, I thought of taking up golf. But instead I caught the cycling bug, which I’ve not been able to shake. It has consumed all of my free time. When I’m not riding outside, I’m riding inside.
But then last summer, on the 15th of July, my son, an ex-college baseball player turned golfer sent me a set of left-handed starter clubs for my 55th birthday. When I called him on his mobile to thank him, he said, “Take some lessons, Dad. It’s something we can do together for the rest of our lives.”
With the anticipation of a bright future of considerable father-son bonding fresh in my mind, I introduced myself to my instructor, and then asked him straightaway if 55 wasn’t too late to be learning how to play this game.
“Not at all,” he said. “This is a game you can play for the rest of your life.”
With two lessons under my belt now, I’m convinced that he left out an important adverb that first day, a word he should have inserted immediately after the word play: that would be “poorly.” A few initial impressions that have led me to this preliminary conclusion follow.
First, there seems to be way more geometry and physics involved than I am capable of mastering.
There is a lot of talk about straight lines, body parts forming triangles, and feet and shoulder squaring. Torque is key, of course. There is even an analogy to a lever and pully system, and something about pulling strings. My instructor fails to understand, however, that I barely passed high school geometry, and that I opted for psychology over physics.
I’ve never been a particularly good visual thinker. My spouse and sons can put things together without looking at the instructions; even with a video, simple drawings that any fourth-grader could understand, and user-friendly Allen wrenches, I can’t assemble an IKEA shoe rack.
Second, the ball is disturbingly small, exacting, and seems to have a mind of its own.
Any ball small enough that can be concealed in a player’s pocket shouldn’t be allowed on the field of play, in my opinion. It’s not even big enough for a professional to autograph, for goodness sake.
Basketballs, baseballs, softballs, footballs—in my book they are all o.k. You can’t hide them from other players or the referees, and you can get everybody on the team, from the office, or in the fraternity to sign one!
Weighing in at 1.62 ounces (45.93 grams) with a diameter of 1.68 inches (42.67 mm) the golf ball just sits there on the ground challenging me—a kinetic, heat producing 180-pound human—to simply hit it. Advantage: golf ball.
That lifeless, little white orb obliges me to think about six things when addressing it, twelve things during the backswing, and then twenty-four more on contact and follow-through. Any pre-conceived notion that I had about golf being a simple game of “Seeing the ball and hitting it” evaporated within the first fifteen minutes of the first lesson. This little mass of dimples (anywhere between 250 and 450 of them) shouldn’t be able to exercise that kind of power over any person, male or female.
After finishing my second lesson and wishing my instructor a nice weekend, I stayed at the driving range and hit a bucket of 100 of these wicked spheres with my 7 iron. Approximately nine of them flew straight (and I’m fairly certain that I am exaggerating, by a large measure).
Finally, I fear this game may be more of an art than a science, despite the money I’m plunking down for lessons from a pro.
“Hey, Lefty!” I heard from over my shoulder while I was bending over to place another handful of balls on the mat.
I looked up to discover I had been joined in my cage by another soul who just couldn’t wait until Spring to get started. He didn’t look like much of a golfer, and he certainly wasn’t dressing the part. He was wearing big clunky work boots—the kind construction guys wear to the site each day.
“While I was standing out there on the path, I heard the way you were making contact,” he said. “You’re hitting the mat before the ball on too many shots. You’re chunking it, Lefty! Move the ball back. It’s is too far forward,” he opined.
Of course, my instructor had just finished telling me to move the ball UP because I had it too far back.
“You have to find your own comfort zone, man,” he continued. “Don’t let these guys try to make you into the next Tiger Woods. Just find what works for you and whack that sucker.”
“Thanks for your advice,” I said, turning my head ever so slightly to prevent him from seeing my eyeballs rolling around in my head. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
As I was reviewing the half-dozen things I needed to do when addressing the ball, my train of thought was interrupted by another “Hey, Lefty!”
“Another thing—you’re bending over the ball too far,” he offered. “Try to stand up more, pull your head back, but keep your head in when you hit it. You don’t need to look up. I’ll tell you whether it was a good shot.”
This unsolicited torrent of advice continued for another fifteen minutes or so, until he mercifully moved to the tee in the next cage.
After “whacking” a couple more balls, I hear from the other side of the wall: “Hey, Lefty, sounds to me like your ball is drifting forward again. Move it back. You’ll be o.k. Find your spot!”
After sending each of my last five balls slicing down the fairway, I packed my things, and paused to watch my “coach” hit a few.
Wouldn’t you know it, he hit every ball a ton, and every one of them was straight as an arrow.
He was really enjoying himself.
Go figure.
