Bob Sanchez’ BS

I’ve loosely mentioned golfing, and that’s because I recently picked up the clubs for the eighth time (after laying them down or throwing them into trees and lakes seven times).

Japan is a most unlikely place to rekindle the golf flame – equipment and facilities cost about three times what they should and there is five times less space in which to use said equipment and construct said facilities.

The Kochi Youth Center offered a weekly golf class last winter for ten bucks, so I took the bait and signed up. The highly prohibitive start-up cost included a rental club and seven lessons, and we were on our own for range balls. I showed up to the first class, got a seven-iron and a range card, and went to work.

The teacher, a grizzled golf pro who resides at the fabulous Tosa Country Club to the east in Aki City, had leathery skin and a gravelly voice abused by mountains of cigarettes. He spent two hours a week each Tuesday with the seven students and me, tinkering with our swings and offering more advice than we could ever use.

I got the sense that Golf Pro particularly liked working with me, and if he didn’t like it then at least he always went home with some question of mine on his mind.

I was concerned with him changing my swing after I’d find a groove that produced positive results. Golf Pro said it was like building a sandcastle as the tide went out; I’d get something going and then he’d have to knock it down and expose some flaw, then I’d build that up and he’d knock another part down, until the tide was completely out and my beautiful, fundamentally strong castle could stand unmolested.

Each time, I resented going from finally being able to hit a long, straight ball five times out of ten to shanking or slicing everything and only hitting it eighty yards. Then, each time, as I subdued the rage within, I improved until I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing or trying my hardest to hit the ball, which is exactly how one ought to go about hitting a golf ball.

None of this was real golf, keep in mind, it was just practice. Still, it felt wonderful to have some semblance of control over where the ball was going and to feel smooth, natural, and athletic in so doing.

Then, in the seventh and final class, Golf Pro passed out the pitching wedges and told us to work on approaches. He showed us how to do it and said that we needed to acquire a feel for hitting the ball with a certain loft and distance. We were to work on hitting the ball thirty yards, fifty yards, and seventy yards.

This is where the wheels come off the temper train for me. Nothing frustrates me more in golf than trying to hit a ball ninety feet and failing. I can spit into a cup ninety feet away, for cryin’ out loud. Why shouldn’t I be able to put a golf ball close to one?

It didn’t take ten swings for all of those feelings to return and make me wish there was a lake at the range to chuck my rental club into. I reverted to the only way I knew how to make a golf ball go straight for a short distance, which was to face the target with my body and take an awkward, short swing by drawing my arms out and pushing them forward. It’s not pretty and not very consistent, but at least the ball goes in the right direction.

Golf Pro told me that wouldn’t hold up at Tosa Country Club.

Golf Pro: Mac, you can’t do that at TCC. They’ll laugh you off the course.

Mac: Well, what if it works for me? Look, I can hit that target better by doing it my way.

I took five of his swings and shanked every one of them, and then five of my goofy swings and hit a sidewalk thirty yards away each time.

Mac: See? This works!

Golf Pro: Can you hit it fifty yards that way?

Mac: No, I’m sure I can’t.

Golf Pro: What would you do if you were fifty yards away from a hole, then?

Mac: Triangulate and hit it thirty yards twice.

I wasn’t trying to make him laugh; I was serious. I have the most fun playing golf when I walk up and simply hit the ball closer to the hole. Correct mechanics and scorecards turn a pleasant day outside with friends into a thorny, muddy, sandy walk through hell for me.

Golf Pro laughed and suggested that I do things the right way, his way. I told him that I wasn’t trying to be a professional and asked him if there wasn’t some middle ground.

I was able to admit that my way was dumb and inefficient and that I lacked the patience to suffer through thousands of failures, but I also believe that there is validity and importance in remembering that few of us are professionals. Par is by definition the number of strokes it should take for a professional to knock out a given hole, and by comparing ourselves to pros in that way, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment.

This middle ground I sought did not exist in the mind of Golf Pro, and we went back and forth on the subject for the better part of an hour. I didn’t understand how there couldn’t be a way to improve without striving toward a meticulously professional swing, and, as is typical, kept on asking questions aggressively until I did understand.

Golf Pro finally said that golf wasn’t for me. He said the words,

You can’t play.

I almost believed him. I almost dropped the pitching wedge and left right there. Life certainly wouldn’t be any worse without golf. I could have left it all behind in that moment. I have so many other things going on, so many other activities that challenge me and bring me happiness and positivity.

But his words challenged me. Taking the entire conversation into context, he was saying that I lacked the mental fortitude to play golf. This had nothing to do with hand-eye coordination or anything physical; Golf Pro was saying that I was not good enough in the head to play his game.

Seething, I went back to my mat. I put my head down and took 400 approach swings, intending to do it his way until it worked. I didn’t get there that night.

I turned in my rental club at the end of class and bought a wedge for myself. I became a member at the dinky practice range near my apartment, the one whose owner leaves the door unlocked at all hours. I have budgeted an amount of money to spend each month on enduring the anger and frustration and learning how to toss that ball up to the cup with my club.

It’s working. Two months of sunrise practice later, life is much better. I’ve found ways to re-channel the rage and improve in golf, and can even use those methods in everyday life. I am going to continue to invest in this and use this as a way to leave behind my biggest problem. And I’m not far from taking money to hit a ball ninety feet.

There’s a bald old man at the range every morning, Mr. Doi. He’s even there when I go after school sometimes. The school schedule came out this week, and I have no class on Wednesdays. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him there when I start going Wednesdays at lunch.

This morning, as I toweled off and turned to head home and prepare for work, Mr. Doi stopped me:

Mr. Doi: Mac, going so soon? That was really fast!

Mac: Well, Mr. Doi, some of us have jobs.

Mr. Doi: (laughing) Yeah, that can’t be helped, I suppose. Say, let’s go golfing some time. You got a set of clubs?

Mac: (waving pitching wedge) You’re lookin’ at it.

We’re not going to get out together until summer vacation, but I really believe that it will happen. Seeing Mr. Doi at the range in the mornings is just one more thing that helps me deal with the frustration, and one more thing that makes Kochi home.