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002711 Visit since
| Learning
the game - Part 7 | by Peter Gray
November
10, 2002. | 
If you followed the advice in my last article, you will by now have ensured that
your golfing attire will get you to the first tee at least looking as if you know
what you are doing. But clothes alone do not a golfer make. To continue building
your confidence, it is important that you master some pre-game rituals. Because
if they are poorly performed, the fact that you are inwardly trembling like a
jelly will quickly become obvious to your fellow-players. And they will be quick
to exploit your slightest tremor. First of all, you should
observe carefully how your experienced friends sling their golf clubs over their
shoulders. For the first three months of my playing career I did not pay attention
to this. Due to this obtuseness on my part, my golf clubs always cascaded out
of the bag and on to the ground long before I reached the golf-cart. It is well-nigh
impossible to maintain your confidence, if you are scrabbling to stuff fourteen
clubs back in your bag while a baker's dozen of your balls go leaping off in all
directions. You will be well advised to contrive to have
someone other than yourself strap your golf-bag on to the cart. There is a knack
to this - and if you get it wrong your golf-bag will bail out backwards into the
path of a stranger's cart behind you, just as you drive past the club-house. You
are much better off if you can avoid giving the breakfast crowd some free entertainment. As
you approach the practice range, you may want to surreptiously remove from your
clubs the "Snoopy and Friends" golf covers your wife picked out for
you at a bazaar-sale. "Cuteness" has its place I'm sure, but on a golf
course I would leave it to the lady golfers. On he other hand, if you can find
some newish Big Bertha covers to disguise your Sears' One Day Specials - that
would be a smart thing to do. The first serious business
of the day occurs on the practice range. If there is at least one club in your
bag you feel comfortable with - then by all means use that on the practice range.
No sense in revealing more of your lack of aptitude than you have to. If your
companions are hitting drives consistently over 250 yards, you will be well advised
to make a strategic retreat to the putting range. If
you feel absolutely compelled to hit some practice balls with your driver, look
for a spot as far away as possible from the other players and certainly well out
of sight of your playing companions. Should you hit a ball that rolls an embarrassing
twenty feet and stops directly in front of the player on your right, swing abruptly
round and gaze fixedly at the player on your left. Shake your head sympathetically
and then turn again to the player on your right with a conspiratorial wink. Nearly
always you will escape detection if you perform this routine with sufficient confidence.
Practicing on the putting green requires paying close
attention to where any fellow-practicers are hitting their balls. As on the driving
range, the best thing is to keep as far way from them as possible. It is considered
bad form to have your ball scatter another player's beautiful six-ball grouping
around pin number five, even if you were actually aiming at number eight. Fortunately,
you do not have to putt the practice holes in any particular order. Trading on
this, I have perfected a special hunchback crouch that makes it inordinately difficult
for on-lookers to figure out which hole I am aiming for. I hit the ball and simply
let it nominate, by the route it chooses to take, the hole I was going for. This
technique frequently results in some seemingly damn fine putts! If,
despite the foregoing, you do not feel that joining in the practice routine will
add anything to your confidence level, it is permissible to avoid it one of two
ways. The first is to declare in a loud voice: " I am ready to play!"
Leap as athletically as you can into your golf cart, put your foot on the pedal
and rattle determinedly away in the direction of the first tee. If your friends
are decent fellows, they will shrug and follow your lead. The second is to call
out to your companions : "The starter is calling for us to get going!"
Do not be deterred by the fact that you can see three groups of players bunched
up waiting to start play on the first tee. Once you have succeeded in hustling
your companions to the tee, you can make a great fuss about who had what tee-off
time and thus disguise your little deception. Once you
and your friends are in clear possession of the first tee, there will be a short
pause for the performance of what you might think of as "before play."
It is quite reminiscent of the rituals that some birds go through during mating
season. I am sure you have all seen nature films of male birds dancing about like
dervishes, or hopping madly in the air and gyrating around with their tails extended
like open fans. Male golfers are impelled to perform something similar before
play begins.. (Women golfers are more prone to simply taking out their lipstick
for a final touch-up.) There are a number of options
you can choose, any of which are acceptable ways of sharing in this pre-game ritual.
The simplest is to just grab your driver, stand apart from your friends and make
some elegant practice swings at any dead leaves or worm-droppings in your vicinity.
If you have been practicing hitting real balls for half an hour before hand, this
may seem a bit redundant. Also, if you persistently see your club-head miss its
target by three or four inches, your self-esteem will take a bad knock. Some variants
on this first option include adding a metal "doughnut" to the club to
dramatically increase its weight. Or swinging two clubs simultaneously. In either
case, the objective is to say in effect: " Watch out! Me…Superman!"
The second option is to grasp your club with both arms
open wide and do some overhead stretching while swaying from side to side. This
maneuver may be helpfully accompanied by some loud grunting noises designed to
signal the intensity with which you are preparing for the game. Actually, if you
have any favorite physical trick of your own, it will probably serve your purpose
here. I have a friend who likes to make a show of touching his toes several times
without bending his legs. Since I have difficulty reaching anywhere below mid-calf,
his demonstration of superior flexibility is chillingly effective in instilling
self-doubt in my mind. Another fellow I have played with
has the habit of standing still and shaking his arms the way I have seen swimmers
do before a race. Frankly, I thought this was a sissy routine and in no way competitive
with the grunting gyrations of my other friends. However, when he proceeded to
out-drive everyone by a clear fifty yards once we started playing, I could only
conclude that his warm-up ritual was a deliberately executed piece of misinformation.
Perhaps he works for the CIA. Archives
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