Coming to Grips

Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Golf Book

BY: Robert Scott Nussbaum

I'm not saying my golf game went bad, but if I grew tomatoes, they'd come up sliced.
~Miller Barber

After fifty years playing this game, my skills have abandoned me. I actually shanked a three-foot putt yesterday. I see chips heading in directions unknown. I find my once trusty driver to be a foreign object in my hands. I can take comfort in no part of my game. I am a stranger masquerading as myself as I wander helplessly for eighteen holes.

I took up golf at six, and from that point on it was a natural fit. I took a few lessons when I was eight or nine, but I don't think it was this professional advice that molded my game. I was an athlete, and the flow of the swing came to me as easily then as walking.

Now, fifty-six, as I look in the mirror, I see little evidence of that young boy. I play with a friend, same age as me, who regularly hits 300-yard drives. I find myself struggling to bunt the ball 200 yards. The distance with my irons is equally pathetic. I often find myself lying to my fellow players when they ask what club I hit, so as not to be embarrassed by my lack of strength. My friends who took up the game late in life are now passing me on the golfing highway.

My sister insists I should be taking lessons. For someone who is inherently lazy, cheap, and has been forever convinced that corrections are ultimately within one's own power to make, I have rejected her advice. For so long, a tweak here and a tweak there have been enough to bring my game back. I was always able to pull out from my memory bank some forgotten secret that aligned me physically and mentally. I could handle whatever little missteps I made, and bring my game back to the level I was comfortable with and enjoy moments of pride in my accomplishments. Now, all I find when I look for these guides is an empty box. Someone has hidden the answers from me. The CliffsNotes have been lost. I am looking into the abyss and am having trouble maintaining my balance.

Is the answer to swallow my pride and admit that after half a century the golfing gods have been wooed away? Must I make that dreaded phone call to a pro asking for help? I still cling to the belief that the light will be turned back on with my next swing. That the high, short, ugly slices and complete mis-hits that now inhabit my game will be replaced with beautiful low draws that travel forever. That I will find birdies and pars to be regular staples of my golfing diet once again.

I think I will give myself one or two more bad rounds before I cry uncle. I will get the names of some teaching pros I can call upon, and carry their phone numbers with me at all times. If and when the weight of my disappointments becomes too much to bear, I will start dialing the phone. Until that moment comes I find myself like an addict who believes that salvation can be attained by the sheer belief that you have the inherent power to achieve it.

As I look in the mirror, I like to think I am still the six-year-old boy who could play. However, until the magic reappears, I would strongly suggest that you stand behind me whenever I swing because I have no idea where the ball is going.

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