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 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.
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