I've taken four golf lessons so far, and I continue to go to the driving range to practice. I'm at the point where I'd like to try to play . . . not the course pictured here, of course. This is the course in Wailea, Maui -- we actually stayed in a condo right on the course on our trip a couple of weeks ago. Oh, to be able to go back someday and actually play golf in Hawaii . . .
At this point I'd settle for the basic par 3 course down the street from where we live. I was encouraged during my last golf lesson when my instructor told us (me and the two other women taking the class) not to get discouraged when we go out and play golf. "Golf courses were built for professionals," he said. "So don't worry about what the par is on a particular hole. It may be a par 4 or 5, but to you it's going to be a par 8 or 9. That's OK. You're not professionals, so don't expect yourself to play like them right now. So if you get a 7 on a hole, then that's a birdie for you because you're normally a par 8. That's improvement."
I was thinking about that today when I was out at the driving range. The guy next to me was getting upset with himself every time he did something wrong. I've never even played a course yet, but I know golf can be a very discouraging game. Several people told me before I ever took a lesson that golf is great as long as you don't care how you play. I find myself trying too hard sometimes. Instead of allowing my body to turn, and letting the club hit the ball, I feel like I have a baseball bat in my hands and I've got to hit the darn ball if it kills me. I'm working on allowing myself to take a moment, relax, take a deep breath, close my eyes and remember how it feels when the swing is right . . . and voila! I can hardly believe the difference it makes in my next swing.
"Slow down," my instructor told us on our first day. "If you remember nothing else, remember S L O W. You're not going to get anywhere if you go out there and start whacking balls." It takes focus, and that's a great challenge to me. I'm a naturally high-strung, intense person -- not a good combination, I know, for the game of golf. There are spiritual and mental lessons to be learned through golf. Now if only I could apply them to other areas of my life . . .
I do think golf can be discouraging when we don't play very often but expect ourselves to play at the level of the professionals who play every day. Think of that -- Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Annika Sorenstam (and the list goes on) play golf every day. We'd all get pretty good at golf if we played every day and got paid for it. I liken it to a moment a few weeks ago when I was helping student of mine write the first sentence of a news story. She was stuck. I knew where the story needed to go without even thinking about it. I took over the keyboard at the computer and whipped out a sentence in five seconds. "Wow," she said. "That's why you're the teacher." I recognized this teachable moment for her and the other students listening to our conversation. "It's not magic," I told her. "It comes from writing hundreds and hundreds of stories over the course of years and years. You can do it, too, and it's going to get easier for you. It just takes a lot of practice."
Certainly there are people who are exceptionally gifted at what they do, whether they are professional athletes or not. But few people are born exceptionally gifted at swinging a golf club or swimming the length of a pool or writing stories. They simply practice a lot -- that and they have passion for what they do -- and they become skilled.
That realization is why I'm glad I didn't even pick up a golf club until age 35. If I had attempted golf 10 years ago, I think I would have given up too easily. I know it's going to take a lot of practice to be just a decent player. But I'm willing to give it a try.
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