Bill Pennington’s article in the NYT (link here) gives me a bit of a pause, as I do have opinions about the curse of nativism that forms part of the American political fabric on both sides of the divide. He brings up the possibility that diversity is an asset, by pointing out the homogeneity of the US side -without mentioning Anthony Kim, my homey spectaculare. Basically, the article didn’t make much sense to me as the European side isn’t exactly the Mod Squad.
Bill’s inconsistencies aside, I do think that golf in the US does suffer from the image of Spaulding Smails lurching about at the country club (interview with fellow who played him below). I don’t think that the US team can be faulted for its composition, but I do believe that all of us as golfers need to do better to spread the word about golf. We should consider it our mission as committed golfists to invite and encourage beginners rather than insulated yourself with your usual cronies.
update:
US wins Ryder Cup! Anthony Kim’s match with Sergio was accompanied by the sound of a giant doorbell going bing – bong.
From golf, I am approaching many things with new focus. The deliberation and planning, the fact gathering, and the ultimate decision making with contingencies is easier because I visualize it as a process much like preparing for and lining up a golf shot. Once you are set up, you have to achieve a present-emptiness focused on execution of your plan. This is a thoughtful state in that you are connected to your senses and the levers of activity, but a bit different from the “you can’t blink” quote floating around which has the same origin as “shoot ’em first and let God sort them out.”
Every once in a while, I will play with someone declares they are a 9 to 12 handicap. This is a suspicious number for me, as too often than not, it is a vanity handicap for a bogey golfer (or worse) who deludes himself with low scores. With one individual, I saw him take a double bogey and declare it a par – “it would have been a par, and I can’t take that six because I don’t sandbag.” Which was meant “I don’t sandbag like you.” I had driven him to distraction because I opened with a birdie on his course, and then proceeded to par the next four holes. It was an extraordinary stretch consisting of 190 yard shots landing and skidding to a halt ten feet from the hole, a sand blast to inches, drives that carved the fairways, and putts -really long putts, that dropped. I was carrying a 17 handicap at that time, and it was easily the best stretch of golf I had played up to that point. After he said that, my zone of invulnerability popped as I wanted to wrap my golf club around his neck. He settled into a comfortable pattern of 200 yard drives, 130 yard 7 irons, and fussy chips and drawn out 2 putt bogeys and occasional pars, carding a 92. I ended up with 95 and I posted my score. He didn’t because, he declared again that he was no sandbagger.
I keep reading Sarah Palin’s press releases and the bile rises and it’s that vanity handicap all over. She claims to be a budget cutter, but bills Alaskan for 300 days worked from home, 600 miles from the capital. She claims credit for an unbuilt pipeline. She claims to be a Republican (Party of Lincoln, liberty, competence, efficiency, and brilliance) but tried to censor books, crushed people who got in her way, and put cronies in positions of power -actually, I guess she is what passes for a Republican these days. She claims to be an American, but gave support to Alaskan separatists.
She brays about playing scratch when she really is a bogey golfer who plays with mulligans on every hole, rolled balls on the fairway, and 5 foot gimme’s.
The vanity handicap is that most awful of lies. Sandbaggers lie to others with awareness of their lies. People with vanity handicaps lie to themselves and are incapable of seeing through their delusion. When confronted, they wrap themselves up in self righteousness.
I believe that Mrs. Palin believes she is incapable of lying, believes everything she says is true, and has neither insight nor empathy. She is an empty vessel for broadcasting hacked speeches for Rove. John McCain, whom I once greatly admired, has betrayed us all by putting her on his ticket. The speech above is like a Seinfeld episode, a show about nothing, that appalls just the same.
When I teach residents and medical students, I tell them a surgeon has to practice his skills. I tell them to play video games and develop hand eye coordination, to tie knots with the left and right hands. The knowledge base, the decision making skills, the patient relationship skills are all separate from the actual physical skills of surgery. I tell them, when I ask you to sew, I expect you to sew as if you are a savant -unknowing and unrelating, but technically brilliant and relentless. They should operate scratch. I have known many surgical residents who were walking textbooks of surgery, veritable walkers of water when it came to patient interaction, and superb diagnosticians with CT scanning eyes, ultrasound fingers and ears, but these same brilliant people couldn’t cut their way out of a paper bag.
Golf is basically the same. You have a situation (ball low, high, uphill, downhill, fairway, rough, trap, wind, etc..) that requires a strategic decision to reach an identified goal. The second part (like actually operating) is in the execution -setting up and swinging. This second half has to be pure and unthinking, repetitive and free of emotions and thoughts that may bleed in from the first part -the situation, the strategy, the goal, the eventual score. I was thinking the exact thing in the OR yesterday when I asked my resident to just operate brilliantly (he made me proud), and today, my good friend, J. J. told me the exact same thing about my golf!
It is to disconnect the act from the mind, to achieve a purely detached but present state of being in swinging the club.
Thankfully, I am a scratch surgeon. I hope to be a scratch golfer. (BTW, the hand in the picture belongs to a resident who happens to be a scratch golfer).
Attached is a link to a Youtube video showing Arnel Pineda. He is a Filipino singer who can channel Steve Perry of the band Journey. The video is of Arnel, NOT Steve Perry. The story is that Journey, in need of a lead singer, happened upon Arnel on Youtube and has now hired him as the lead vocalist. Which leads to the strange situation of Journey now being the best Journey cover band. But this is no isolated incident.
All bands eventually end up covering their own songs, carrying themselves on their earlier success. This happens to people as well, as I see people whose greatest moments had happened in high school, college, or ten years ago, but not now. They are cover people, basically doing an adequate job mimicking themselves when they were at their best. Golfism rejects this in that it is very important to stay in the NOW, and to create and play golf for the shot at hand and not for future or past glory.
Pictured here is my son, G, who just had his cast removed last week -he fell off the monkey bars and broke his right radius and ulna (both forearm bones). He has finally loosened up to where he wants to play golf again. It makes me wonder if it is possible to create a Tiger or if Tiger was just born that way. G likes to hit the ball, but mostly, he likes to be with me, and that’s great. I don’t interfere with his swing right now because he’s recovering from an injury, but it is fantastic to see him whack a ball straight and long every once in a while. I hope he ultimately decides to take up golf for himself, and not just to see his old man smile.
Took today off and went to Hyperion. The course was packed with golfers taking an early weekend. Pictured above, I had hooked into the trees, and am waiting for the group ahead to meander to the green. Which brings me to my least favorite topic: waiting.
Courtesy is central to golfism, and first and foremost, it requires an awareness of other people and their needs. If you happen to be in a chatty foursome and you notice you’ve fallen behind a hole and a half, and you have a chap playing by himself behind you, you put yourself in his shoes. You stop flapping your jaw and think about the times that you had to wait, and how it affected one’s ability to execute shots, to drop putts, to BREATHE. So you wave the fellow up and let him play through.
It is an act of generosity that is remembered and appreciated, and it acts to spread the love through the recipient’s day. By giving good karma, you receive it again ten-fold.
But nope, no soup for me today. I played until I could play no more because grandmothers were hitting into me. I picked up on 14 to play another day.
My son Graham has a mood ring that is usually a cool azure blue but turns greenish yellow when he is perturbed. A swing off the tee reflects a lot of baggage. It is as much a mood swing as my son’s ring is a window on his state of mind.
How true is the adage “Golf is a metaphor for life?” The reference to Doral here reminds me it’s true. In fact, golf IS life, no? Whenever I’ve had a chance to play one of the world’s great championship courses, I’ve always been the type who prefers to play from the championship tees rather than from the so-called members’ tees. After all, I don’t feed my family on scoring low on a golf course. What in hell’s in a score? In 1993, the year after the Ryder Cup was played on the Ocean Course at Kiawa Island, South Carolina, I played the course from the championship tees, lost probably a dozen balls, came in with a 112 (I was a 7-handicap at the time) and had the time of my life. Truly mystical. The same year, I played Baltusrol in New Jersey two weeks after the U.S. Open was contested there. I played from the back tees, of course, came home with a 103, and was still mesmerized by the place a week later. A few years later, I went to a business offsite at Doral with my closest work colleagues, and we took an afternoon off to play the championship course, the famed “Blue Monster.” My three playing companions refused to play the back tees and, having forced me into a two-on-two match, I succumbed and played the members’ tees with the rest of them. Except for #18. Although fifty bucks was at stake as walked off the 17 green, I refused to tee off anyplace but the championship tee, despite my partner’s protestations. He was actually pissed. The others teed off safely from the members’ tee, and I—well I was drove into the water left. Long story short: My partner and I lost the match by losing the hole, and my partner—always the gentleman off the course—actually asked me to pay his share of the damages. Come to think of it now, he was always a sort of Chicken Little at work, never much willing to take a good risk. To him, a par is a par and a birdie is a birdie and a bogey is a bogey—in golf as in life—no matter what the challenge. Haven’t talked to him since I moved out of the area in 2003. I don’t know what he’s doing now, except I know it can’t be too thrilling, and certainly not fulfilling.
Golfism -life is a metaphor for golf 
