The Old Dog Project: Perspective

(March 29, 2011)

No place to hide
We videotaped The Old Dog’s golf swing, and if it’s not a thing of beauty, at least it’s watchable.

“Thank god we didn’t take pictures of you originally,” Staskus said. “I would’ve had to go out and get a drink … Now I’m ready to take videos because I can handle it.”

We were able to laugh about that, because the swing we watched was not so funny, so ridiculous, as when we started back in December.

Of all the swings we taped, more often than not I was too steep at the top, but on a few of them I still managed to get back to the ball and through it with some authority and finish in a balanced position.

It didn’t look so tortured as it must have looked when we began.  Oh, still so much work to do. Mid-term? We’re still in freshman acclimation … but early and promising is better than late and hopeless.

Perspective
All of the above was written before The Old Dog took it to the golf course again. It might be better to live in the illusion that you’re getting better than to play an actual round and find out how far you still need to go.

How many ways are there for a swing to go wrong and a scorecard to balloon out of control? I won’t say it wasn’t frustrating.

But look at it this way: I wasn’t reporting to work at a crippled nuclear plant in Japan, doing a dirty and dangerous job that seems little short of suicidal. Those people are heroes, and they didn’t get to play golf.

I’m not living on the street and hungry in Haiti, more than a year after that country’s earthquake.

And I didn’t have to spend my Monday, like my friend Mark Clemens, in major surgery, and wake up to face a daunting recovery.

Golf is a part of life, my life, and we can trot out all those “a bad day of golf beats a good day …” clichés. But golf isn’t life itself.

The Old Dog Project: Progress, in spite of everything

(March 29, 2011)
Even the most open-ended endeavors need a point of reckoning, a time to briefly hit the pause button.

Calling this a mid-term evaluation is a little like calling a 56-year-old man “middle-aged,” and when the project is making sense of the golf swing, it takes not a village (the thoughts filling the player’s head feel more like a metropolis) but a lifetime, because of course when you think you’ve figured out one part of the swing or the game of golf, another part squeaks for attention …

The above sentence is crowded and maybe even contradictory, the way a golfer who’s thinking too much feels when he stands over the ball, and you’ll note that it doesn’t have a period at the end.

I can imagine a time when Tom Staskus throws up his hands and says he can’t teach me anything more, for one of several possible reasons: 1) he’s sick and tired of me; 2) he’s got better things (or students) to give his time to; or 3) like the werewolf’s hair, my swing is perfect.

(Mid-term quiz: Which of the three answers above is least likely to be true?)

Even when we do put an end on The Old Dog Project, I imagine being able to check back with Dr. Tom for a tune-up, a chance for the teacher to admire his handiwork or despair at the deterioration once he let me out of his sight.

In the several months since we started the Old Dog Project, we haven’t gotten together as often as would be optimal, for mundane reasons – work and family, life and health. Nor, from one lesson to the next, has the student practiced as often as he or his teacher would have liked. They say practice helps.

Still, against the odds, progress has been made.

More than once in the process, the student has laughed and shaken his head as a simple thought hit him again: It’s easier to do it right than do it wrong.

It’s easier to get to the right place at the top, to return to the ball on the same path as you took it away; easier to swing the club through the contact area; easier to shift the weight smoothly and finish in balance … than to sway back and lunge forward, to drag the hands through the hitting area, to snap, jerk and flail at the dimpled innocent, the golf ball, that deserves no such indignities.

All of the right ways have good physics reasons for why they work. But only some other science discipline could explain why all the wrong things are hardened into place – and so hard to dislodge.

The Old Dog Project: This time with company

Test No. 2 – March 6, 2011
Eagles Pride at Fort Lewis was pretty in the half-sunlight in my first round with other people and a scorecard since this project started. My game was not half bad about half the time.

Staskus had worked me hard the day before, with more golf swings, with and without a ball, in quick succession, than in any previous lesson.

Even when he’s being pretty specific, Staskus likes to keep it simple. When he’s speaking generally, he’s even simpler: You don’t have to swing hard to hit it hard; watch the club hit the ball; and finish your swing. So take it to the course, dumbass.

I wrote down all the big numbers on the front nine, and they added up to a really big number. It wasn’t all bad – there were a few times I heard the “snick” of a well-struck ball – but too often it was back to bad habits.

On the back nine, I started swinging easier and stopped swaying back on my takeaway (I tried to “stay in my hip,” in Staskus’s words) and I broke 50, with a few strokes to spare.

Not perfect, but it never will be. My misses were better, and that I count as progress.

The Old Dog Project: The old dog plays a round

It’s often said, by accomplished golfers (to lesser players), “You’re not good enough to get upset.

Golf doesn’t owe you a thing, they might say. And they’d be right: I hadn’t put in the time.

If you’re doing nothing right, you don’t deserve to be frustrated when everything is wrong. You can't be mad at golf if you haven’t even tried, in all truth, to know and understand the game and its rhythms and its sweet dissonance.

It‘s rare, on the golf course, when the clashing chord resolves itself into the purest harmonic triad, and it is rarer still to know exactly why. The minor-key stuff, though we might not hear it at the time, will always be among the most beautiful, like the tap-in bogey that started with a drive into the trees.

Which is a way of getting around to saying that all the lessons in the world don’t mean anything until you take it to the golf course. But first, I had work to do.

Old Dog update
I didn’t realize how much I missed the dude until I hit golf balls in front of him for the first time in a month. Family business took Tom Staskus to California, during which time I practiced about as much as anybody would who knows he doesn’t have to get in front of the teacher for a while.

But I did practice, and though I thought I’d been practicing right, it took about two swings for Staskus to pinpoint one or a couple issues.

First, and always foremost, are the feet, the engines of the lower body that power the  turning of the torso while the arms and hands that hold the club go with the flow. I didn’t know it, but I was passive with my feet and lower body, and that left all the work to the arms.

I wasn’t getting to the right place at the top, because I was not letting the shoulder turn take the club back, but rather lifting my arms to places from which I could not possibly start down on any path but outside-in. Call it what you like: Casting, over-the-top, terrible, horrible, with few  possible outcomes other than weak ones.

The golf ball is the dimpled innocent in all of this, sitting in perfect stillness, with no choice but to let the physics of its collision with the club to play out.

Our practice session a week ago Saturday was our best yet.  Something clicked, and Dr. Tom had the rare experience of feeling like he’d gotten through to me.

Test No. 1 – Feb. 22, 2011
I couldn’t have forecasted the nice, then the awful, followed by the mostly OK and the pretty bad. And then there was the weather.

I was on No. 5 at Tumwater Valley, in my first round of golf since October, when we segued into the hail-blowing-sideways portion of the program. It was a good time to break for lunch.

At that point, I had just striped my drive and followed up with a pretty good fairway wood. I never found that ball – in seconds it was camouflaged by hailstones.

I was sorry to stop right then, because I was beginning to feel like it was feeling like I felt it should feel like when it’s feeling right.

He can tell me and tell me, Staskus had said, and it won’t mean a thing until I feel it.

I went back out after lunch, during which time the sun came out for a minute. I got in 12 holes, and it felt good. Not bad for openers.

The Old Dog Project: A slow dance toward a balanced swing

(Jan. 18, 2011)
We had been clear about the concept of working from the ground up – starting with putting, progressing (I presumed) through chipping and pitching, and then to the full swing.

Lately, Tom Staskus (the teacher in this little drama) has taken me from putting right into a swing that’s as close to full as it needs to be right now.

It’s not out of sequence at all – we’re still on the ground. It’s all in the feet, man.

If the feet aren’t working, the hips aren’t turning, the weight’s not shifting from the back leg to the front, and therefore it’s impossible that your arms and the hands that hold the golf club are working in synch with your body.

It’s like a slow dance with a loved one, Dr. Tom says. Don’t force it, just go with it. It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

When I feel that feeling in the longer swing, the teacher says, I’ll be able to find the same rhythm in the short-game swing.

“Not bad, kiddo,” Staskus said after a recent session. “I like the pace we’re going.”

It’s too easy, in severe middle age, to stop trying to learn, to stop seeking out the people who have something to teach us. Golf, in this case, is the subject of choice, and relearning how to learn is at least as important, in the greater scheme, as hitting a golf ball.

He calls me “kiddo” and I have to laugh. I’m older than he is. But you take your mentors where you find them, and you learn your lessons as well as you are open to the teaching of them.

The Old Dog Project: Why not be in control?

(Dec. 27, 2010)
The Old Dog Project pairs a seasoned teacher, local professional Tom Staskus, with a student who’s lost his golf groove, if he ever had one. Early work – some nine hours of practice and lots of conversation about putting – has yielded promising results.

The teacher: The student didn’t practice in the week between yesterday and the previous session, so Staskus, who was inclined to move into some chipping and longer swing work, kept the whole lesson on the indoor green.

From the ground up, the student built on concepts introduced in prior lessons:

• Weight spread evenly over feet;
• Firm legs and core, held still through the stroke;
• Solid grip, one that won’t let the wrists break down or the fingers guide the club;
• Shoulder turn controls the swing back and through the ball.

As the lesson went on, a theme emerged: “Why not be in control of the situation?”

By this, Staskus meant reducing the possibility for breakdowns in the club path. In his own putting, he takes a tiny backswing and strikes the ball firmly, rather than pushing it, and the ball rolls crisply to the hole.

When every element of the putting stroke – the stance, the grip, the turn – is of a piece, it can only enhance the control a player has over the situation that arises on every putting green of every round of golf.

The student: I didn’t make the time to practice between last Saturday and this Monday. The case could be made that family comes first during the holidays, and man, it’s busy, you know?

But I want to hold up my end of the bargain, and that means putting in the work and being honest when I don’t.

It’s completely absorbing: the hours roll by, and Staskus is patient. He doesn’t want to tell me, necessarily, what I’m doing wrong. He would prefer that I feel and recognize where a breakdown, no matter how small, might have pushed or pulled the ball by the hole. It’s getting there.

It’s eye-opening to realize all the different reasons I missed putts in the past. What is more amazing is that I ever made a putt at all.

The Old Dog Project: In for the long haul

When Tom Staskus works on his own game, it’s so he can compete and win, because he plays for money.

I’ll never play for real money, but I do keep score, every round, and I know what my partners shoot, even if we’re not head-to-head. For me, The Old Dog Project is not about winning more, though it’s hard not to believe Staskus can help a guy be tougher in a competitive setting.

Staskus, an accomplished playing pro as well as teacher, carefully reserves a niche in his crowded schedule for his regular Thursday game at Capitol City with Steve McNelly, GM at Capitol City Golf Club, and Jon McCaslin, a talented local amateur. It’s just a game with his buds, but Staskus keeps the date – because it keeps him in a competitive frame of mind.

“Do I have the time to do this? No,” he says. “Do I make the time? Yes.”

I’d like to get to a place where I can get out of my head in this most inward of games, to think the right thoughts by effectively thinking no thoughts at all.

If that sounds a little woo-woo, we do have concrete goals for The Old Dog Project. The short-term target, once I set out to play actual rounds of golf, is to break 90 for the first time. It’s a threshold I get damnably close to, on a good day, and if that was all I was after I wouldn’t bother with bothering Staskus.

A better, more lasting goal is to make steady incremental reductions in my USGA handicap index. Staskus says I’m selling myself short by setting 18 (bogey golf) as a rough goal: he says he can get me well below that.

If we get there, I’ll say, Tom, you’re a better teacher than I could have imagined.

Staskus is in for the long haul on this – four or five lessons won’t make a dent. We might do 40 or 50.

“You can’t do anything in life that doesn’t take work,” he says.

The story of a flaky old dog, unwilling to settle for bad golf for the rest of his life, might resonate with somebody out there.

There’s nothing I can do about being flaky and old. What I do about the golf over the next few months promises to be fun, at the very least, and fun is not a word much associated with my golf game for a very long time.

The Old Dog Project: Reclamation of a golf game

(Dec. 12, 2010)
The disheartened, disenchanted golfer in the post below this one had had it. He was done.

 

He was off golf, through with it, ready to turn to more worthy endeavors – unless something radical were to happen. Did he have the time and the guts to do what it takes to make a real change in his golf game?

 

He’s about to find out.

 

Call it The Old Dog Project.

 

The golfer in question, if there was any doubt, is the name at the top of this blog. He never, in three years writing a golf column for a newspaper, wanted his (my) game to be the subject matter. There’s nothing very interesting about a golfer’s navel-gazing or, worse, trying to be funny about his own golf game.

 

Funny as it might be.

 

Lately, I haven’t wanted to take my game out in public.

 

The Old Dog Project grew out of an offer by Tom Staskus, a local PGA professional, accomplished player and dedicated teacher of golf, to work with me to rebuild a game – and chart the progress here.

 

“This is the hardest sport there is,” Staskus says, “no doubt about it.”

 

We met for our first session on Dec. 9, 2010. I’d been instructed to bring my golf bag, but we didn’t come close to using the whole of it. We started with the putter, because we’re working from the ground up, Staskus says – putting, then miniature swings, and only down the road longer swings.

 

The first thing Staskus did was look at my putter – to see if the instrument might be any impediment to the player being the best putter he can be.

 

We looked at my putting “routine,” which is distinguished by never looking the same way twice. We firmed up my setup, got me standing a little closer to the ball at address (which had the effect of making my putter flatter to the ground) and worked on stillness in my core over the ball, which is harder than it sounds.

 

Staskus likes it simple – good balance and a squared clubface through the ball. What works in putting works in chipping and works in driving the ball.

 

There are many paths to the plunk of the ball hitting the bottom of the hole. My teacher doesn’t plan to dictate to me all the hows and whys – however comfortable I was in my old ways, he wants me to get comfortable in new, better ways that work for me.

 

Staskus’ message, if I can extrapolate from one lesson, is uncluttered by too much golfish geek-speak.

"If I have to try to groove a lot of different moves," he says, "that's just too much thinking for me. I like something very simple."

The Old Dog cries in the wilderness

He’s old enough to get the senior discount at a couple local courses, though he often forgets to ask for it.

He can talk a decent game. He knows a few people in the game. There isn’t a day goes by that isn’t tied up in some way with golf.

He thought long and hard, in recent years, about how he might make his favorite hobby pay off in a small way. He’ll never make a dime playing it, but maybe, he thought, there was some angle he could work to turn a buck in the game.

And then he lucked into more than he could have hoped for, a situation such that often when he’s playing he’s “working.”

So, it would be reasonable to think the game is good to him and good for him. He enjoys the guys he plays with. It is the rare golf course that doesn’t take his breath and arrest his attention at some point along the way.

There’s no more beautiful place and time, he believes, than a golf course in the long shadows of a late afternoon.

But he’s done. At least for a while, maybe a long while. It’s not the approach of winter that’s shutting him down. It’s his game, his “game,” and he puts quote marks around it because he knows that anybody with any knowledge of golf would have to say he’s got no “game.”

It’s not always all bad, but it’s never all good.

On a day when his short game’s working, he’s chipping it close and one-putting … for 6s and 7s. When he’s decent off the tee, he can’t hit a green to save his life.

His swing flaws are classic. He’s over the top, outside-in, a weak and wild chicken-winging caster.  He’s a chunker when he’s not a skuller, a slicer when he’s not a hooker. He’s stuck, he’s blocking, he’s messed up … in ways he’s not even sure he’s using the right words to describe.

When he manages a good shoulder turn, he forgets to turn his lower body back to the ball. If he stays in his posture, like he knows he should, he’s stiff and jerky and snappy. When he tries to “just swing easy,” he forgets to swing the club at all.

He’s got too many swing thoughts and not enough focus. He’s not having any fun.

Golf is the damnedest game, and he has the damnedest time playing it. He’s quit the game for good too many times to count ... always, remarkably, one less time than he’s picked it up again.

Now, he’s not quitting the game. He’s just putting it aside … getting his life and priorities and sagging physique back in order. He’ll be back to the golf course … in February, maybe, or March.

When he returns, he vows, he’ll have a new, practiced golf swing, a freshened attitude, a fabulous love life and untold riches.

He’d settle for the new golf swing.

To get there, he’s first going to put his golf bag in the shed and leave it there. He’s going to work out, on the theory that a stronger body builds stronger and better habits. He’s going to do strength training, cardio, maybe even yoga.

He’s not going to touch a golf club until he’s ready to face the music with a teaching pro.

He’s been to pros before … at least a half-dozen. All nice people, and he’s gotten something of value from each of them … the super-fluid whoosh-before-the-ball turn-around-your-torso firm-wrist stuff that ought to stick to him.

If they saw him now, what could they say but, “Have I taught you nothing?” That’s why he might pick a teacher he’s never had before, a guy with no history of failure at fixing his particular swing.

And he’ll practice. He’ll He’s going to practice correctly. He’ll work on his short game more than his long game, on putting more than pounding balls.

When he finally steps up to a tee box for a real round of golf, in February, maybe March, he’ll be calm, serene, cool and composed, because he’ll have a new game. All the rest of the pieces of his life will fall right into place.

And a golf course in the late afternoon sun will still be a fine place to be.