SOMEWHERE amid the feverish whirl of the Ryder Cup, Butch Harmon was getting technical about swings and saying there was something about Justin Rose's swing on one shot which he particularly liked.
The exact wording of the American's comment escapes me now, but as far as I can recall, the gist was that he liked the way the young Englishman had got the ball up quickly by coming into the shot steeply and sending it on its way along with a small d
ivot. Circumstances had demanded that Rose improvise on the shot and Butch reckoned he'd done it very well. It was almost possible to sense a collective sigh coming from the great mass of ordinary golfers who were listening wistfully out there. For them, improvisation on a golf shot – successful improvisation – is but a pipe dream and a pretty dim one at that.
It really is extraordinary how members of the same species can display such a wide range of physical ability. Leaving aside those traitors to the cause who play to low handicaps by way of hard work and dedication, most club golfers are hard put to it to come up with what might be termed basic swings in order to get round courses without going mad. They too, improvise, the difference being that they don't mean to. They're forced to improvise because for the most part they don't have a basic swing.
Of course, the improvised swings aren't much to write home about either and they rarely work. As a result, the sad routine of painful trial and error goes on more or less uninterrupted until age, infirmity or sheer weariness brings to an end the whole shoddy business.
The answer, in all probability, lies on the practice ground, but club golfers seldom want to know that, preferring to fantasise about the happy day when inspiration, fuelled by natural talent and flair, sweeps in and transforms them from the wrecks they are to princes of the links who will stun their chums and make people like Nick Faldo tear up their team sheets. However, there might be an alternative road to success, less agonising than practice and more likely than magical transformations.
I was recently given a print-out full of helpful information gleaned from what is, apparently, a website about the power of imagination. Friends often ply me with print-outs in attempts to bring me up to speed with the net and its wonders. They think I'm resisting change and refuse to believe that I'm not resisting anything. I'm merely bemused by the whole scene. I don't know why it happens or how it happens and the less I have to do with it, the happier I am. This is not ingratitude, it's just a strong instinct for survival. When I hear people going on about dots, coms and forward slashes I become giddy and am tempted to lie down until the feeling passes.
This latest print-out is interesting in that it calls to attention things which can be accomplished by astutely harnessing the imagination and gives a golfing example which appears in a section about "Amazing Human Experiences." According to the print-out, Col. George Hall of the US Air Force spent seven years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and to help him through the ordeal, he imagined himself playing a round of golf every day. It is reported that a week after his eventual release from prison, he entered the Greater Orleans Open and shot 76.
Unfortunately, no further details about Col. Hall are furnished, but it would seem safe to assume that he must have been a considerable golfer before his imprisonment. The fact that he chose golf as the subject with which to keep his mind occupied during the incarceration would suggest at least an interest in the sport. Had he been a professional at one time? Did he enter the New Orleans tournament as a professional, a low-handicap amateur or play in a pre-tournament pro-am? Whatever the facts may be, a 76 after seven years in a North Vietnam POW camp is some going by any reckoning.
I'm inclined to go along with this imagination business, for I brought my own handicap down to 6 – the lowest it's ever been – just after I'd finished my National Service. For two years I never touched a club, but I'd had my golf magazines sent out to me in Cyprus and had scrutinised action pictures of top golfers for hours on end. By the time I got home, I was buzzing with perfect images and thoughts of flawless technique. I might not have looked like Peter Thomson, Bobby Locke or Ben Hogan but I felt like a heady blend of all three, with a smattering of Sam Snead thrown in.
It didn't last. Like a coastline which is taking punishment, my self-assurance crumbled steadily, my handicap began to climb and there was nothing I could do to stem the erosion. I tried reading magazines again, but it was no good. The stultifying boredom of Army life, so conducive to concentration, was missing. Within months, all traces of Thomson, Locke and Hogan had vanished. Going by the results, they'd been replaced by the Andrews Sisters.
The full article contains 884 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
