You can see it in our eyes, this glimmer of hope. We shuffle our feet, squinting at the ball as if silently willing it to fly straight. In a dozen or more little twitches we re-align ourselves, remember and adjust for golf’s cardinal rules, of which there are many. Try to get comfortable, though in my experience golf never feels comfortable.
There might be a determined expression, or one that suggests anticipation, but often it’s a look that tries to hide a degree of terror. Fear borne of a thousand different disappointments, myriad flavours of failure. Some public humiliations, though our playing partners forgot them instantly, instead privately mortified by their own.
Still we venture out into these fields of trial and error, where golf rips us apart, strips away our dignity and leaves us feeling as naked and helpless as the day we were born. Perhaps more so, as at least then we didn’t carry this lingering, devastating emotional baggage, of having been a victim of golf, over and over again.
But in a dark and complex world, this delicate, persistent sliver of hope has great value. Golf’s house edge may be stacked to a degree that no casino could ever maintain, but there is something that keeps us coming back, facing those ludicrous odds, and it is the hope that we might once again finish upright, staring down the corridor of grass after a ball that flies like a dart at a bullseye. And when it comes, it is worth each and every wretched fiasco that preceded it.
Sometimes this deluded anticipation doesn’t stand a chance, for we talk ourselves out of it before the peg is in the ground. There are straightforward holes I doubt I’ll ever master, for upon facing them my broad catalogue of errant strokes brings forth a swell of negative vibes, and that lingering fear now looks more like just plain common sense, in light of what has gone before.
The stories we tell ourselves, of our golf and our life, have much to do with what actually happens, and when we go into battle half-expecting defeat, we’d better have another ball in our pocket (though a part of me thinks that we invite catastrophe in carrying a spare; that we’re accepting the inevitable in doing so, replacing “if” with “when”…).
But in this mysterious realm of golf, there’s a stroke which seems strangely fluid by contrast. Where the stance is taken easily, naturally. Where the rhythm is not too slow and jerky; nor too fast. Where the sudden lurch from the top is replaced by a powerful pendulum of building focus, and the finish is one of upright poise and balance, rather than collapsing disgust. And that glimmer of fear in the eye? It’s absent, and instead lurks some hint of agency, confidence. Maybe even the slightest suggestion of controlled anger.
This stroke is, of course, one we know better than we’d like to, though the result it often brings is glorious. I’ve a friend who maintains that this golfing cliche - of The Provisional always hammering down the centre - is a phenomenon that can be understood and explained in rational terms, like percentages and notions such as confirmation bias.
And when we play together, he splits the fairway each and every time, and I carry a spare, and have to replace it several times before we can shake hands, and we agree to disagree. For I understand what he is saying, and have no doubt that there’s sound logic in his argument. But part of golf’s charm is in a persistent ability to surprise us, and the layers of the game that seem to run deeper than facts and theories are of greater interest to me.
The Provisional seems to be free of the fear that lurks beneath our normal efforts. The damage has been done with the first ball, and the pressure is off, so it seems to invite the sort of non-thinking, instinctive approach that nearly always results in triumph, albeit immediately after disaster. The second one doesn’t count, we seem to tell ourselves, reaping a revenge on golf with a magnificent Provisional; too little too late.
But the first one only counts if we care about our score, and even if we do, in the grand scheme of things it’s hardly critical. Yet we grimace at our first ball both before and after the extraordinary spectacle that is our golf swing, and it is only in the re-load that the child-like, positive freedom that can create these tiny, soaring miracles is evident. It’s as if we need the first one to get ourselves and our stories out of the way.
This time of year is full of good intentions; rich in hopeful resolutions. I’ve notebooks full of previous years’ objectives, as if the habits of a lifetime could be solved in a single decision over the threshold of a new year, but as Einstein noted, “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” is not going to get us very far.
So I will instead carry over one of the unusually vague targets from this year - to “play more golf” - and annotate it with a sub-heading. One that reminds me to take a few more risks, stand up straight in front of the ball and the life before me and start again, regardless of the one before.
To see and acknowledge the doubts that lurk beneath the surface, and step up to the plate anyway, leaving them aside for another time. To search for the stillness that resides when I stand over the re-load, and put it into action first time round. To trust the process and let the results take care of themselves. That would be more like a revolution…
2023:
“To play more golf”
“To play more provisionally; to play less provisionals”.
Excellent, but we don't need resolutions - it is an affliction, a religion - "Playing golf on Sunday in parts of Scotland is still considered a sinful pastime but this doctrine is fundamentally flawed, assuming that golf is somehow a pleasurable activity rather than a parallel and complementary religion. We suffer for our sins at pulpit and pin." https://northumbrianlight.com/2012/08/22/pulpit-and-pin/
That’s a rather good piece Richard, happy new year my friend!