Becoming a Golfer, Part 2

In an earlier entry, I spoke that I was on the road to becoming a golfer, but hadn't quite achieved that status and was still just someone who plays golf. Although I cannot yet take that mantle upon myself, I'm coming ever so much closer to self-identifying as a golfer, because my game is changing. I'm swinging the club better and my handicap trend is down. I'd gotten stuck shooting in the mid- to high-90s, sometimes lower, but sub-90 scores were rare. In fact, until a few weeks ago, I'd had only one sub-90 score all spring and summer.

Then I went out and shot an 87 on one of the two toughest courses in the area -- where my previous low had been 96. A couple of weeks later (with rounds of 92 and 96 in between) I went to my favorite course in the county and shot an 84. Had I not closed triple bogey, double bogey, I could have broken 80 for the first time. I was hitting it better off the tee: longer, and not so far off line (though still drifting right too often to please me). I was striking my irons better, too, and hitting more solid chips. Putting remained about the same -- still the strongest part of my game.

Then, in my most recent round, site of the recent 87, I shot 99. Thing is, it didn't feel like I was hitting the ball that much worse. Looking back, I think the major mitigating factor was the condition of the greens. They had just been aerated, meaning they are covered with a pattern of indentations the size of a quarter that make it almost impossible to predict either speed or line. I remarked to my playing partner that we ought to give ourselves three strokes a side to compensate. (As it turns out, I took exactly five more putts that round than my average, so the estimate wasn't too bad.) That would make it a 94. Put me back at the 6400+ yard tees (instead of the 6800+ yard tees I played) and it might have been 92 or 91. More respectable.

I also seem to be making fewer mental errors. I don't mind making physical errors so much. I'm not that great an athlete, so I don't expect that much out of my body. But I do think I'm relatively bright, so it peeves me no end when my mind lets me down on the links. After all, it doesn't take any special athletic skill to align yourself at address so you are actually aiming at your target, or to remember to take wind and elevation changes into account when choosing which club to hit.

Then I remembered one of my favorite quotes about golf: that the game is 90% mental, and 10% mental. The golf swing is not a reactive motion. It is triggered by my mind consciously telling my body to begin firing the neurons that will stimulate the right muscles to contract and release to turn my shoulders, fire my hips and bring the arms and hands back down and through to the other side of my body. I can't say I don't know what a successful swing feels like, because I accomplish one several (to several dozen) times a round. I cannot, therefore, let myself off the hook with the excuse that I'm not much of an athlete.

It's up to me to figure out a way to not only continue to reduce mental errors, but to also learn how to condition my mind to fire the neurons in the right patterns in order to achieve the sweet, smooth motion I emulate and am occassionally able to accomplish.