Finding Life’s
Fairway
In an ongoing search for the meaning of life, as
well as a perfect five iron, I ask: Are the two somehow connected?
By Terence Loose
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y life on the golf course has not been an easy one. My
memories are filled with bad lies, dark forests, ocean-sized bodies of water,
and ornery club marshals hunting me down in souped-up
golf carts. And that’s just childhood. Later memories include nasty images of
twisted clubs, marathon 60-hole binges in 110-degree desert heat, shameful
three-bucket lunches, and a small fortune spent on ineffective swing
enhancement paraphernalia. In short, by my mid-20’s I had sunk to full-blown golfoholic, losing all perspective of who I was and why I
felt the need to chase a small white ball around hazard-filled terrain. What
was this roller coaster called golf? A ride that at times gave you highs so
majestic you felt like Leonardo riding the bow of Titanic, only to be immediately
followed by a screaming plunge into the depths of icy. . .well, if you play
golf, you know. Yes, we golfers are a strange, tough, stupid breed. We take our
beatings, muscle through defeat after defeat and enthusiastically run from the
18th hole (where we took a 9) straight to the starter’s booth for
another tee time.
Three years ago, I chronicled my own degenerative
relationship with the game for this magazine, frankly exposing my addictive and
destructive history in an effort to help others avoid following in my spike
marks. And though I knew trying to help a golfer is as futile as lending a
shoulder to Sisyphus, the story held promise: To find a way out of the tall
rough of golf obsession and regain control of my life. At first I tried going cold
turkey, but that resulted in a minor eye twitch and bizarre stammer whenever I
tried to use a word starting with the letter “g”. So, I talked to other golfoholics—sort of a Golfers Anonymous group therapy
approach. But all that did was gain me a few new golf-addict
partners willing to hit the local tees before sunrise. I pressed on.
What I needed was perspective; a way of balancing everything
in my life in order to make the whole more valuable. That’s when it hit me like
a Tiger Woods one-iron: Golf is life. Let me clarify that, lest you think I’ve
really lost it. It’s not a new thought but the simple truth is, as sports go,
golf is one of the strongest metaphors for life. In fact, when played from the
proper perspective, golf can actually enhance one’s life.
I decided to trust this feeling and began using the golf
course to find the real me, and to work out just what the game of golf could
offer, instead of take. I began doing things virtually unheard of in the world
of golf: Thinking positively; not worrying about my score; appreciating trees,
accepting my slice! And it worked. Not that I’m a better golfer, but I am a
happier golfer—not to mention a much more relaxed civilian.
To help me stay on the right path, I also met with Joseph
Parent, Ph.D., a man trained in psychology and passionate about golf. Traveling
to courses around the nation, Parent helps people become better golfers by
changing their perception of their game. “I’m not going to work on your
backswing or refine your technique,” he told me in our first session. “Go to
your golf pro for that. What I do is help people become more confident and
comfortable with their games. Then, they can start lowering their handicaps.”
Parent is by no means a professional golfer; in fact, he carries an 8-handicap.
Here’s the thing though: He’s okay with that. So I figured he could help.
More than anything else, though, we talked about how seeing
things from an entirely new perspective could improve my life—both on and off
the course. “Golf is great for working on perspective,” Parent said, “because
perspective plays such a large part in the game. Course designers use that;
their job is to make people think.” We also discussed why golf is so addictive
for so many. “In life we seek challenges; that’s what life is about,” he began.
“But our pursuits need to be just challenging enough. If they’re too hard, we
give up; too easy and we don’t care.” Golf, with its infinite amount of course
designs and difficulty levels, offers that for anyone. As in life, we’re always
trying to find that magic secret that will mean happiness ever after. And as in
life, it always seems just ahead of the next turn. “Like life, golf is
especially challenging because we can’t believe it’s so difficult to master,”
says Parent. “After all, the ball just sits there and there’s no goalie. They
even tell the audience to be quiet!” Well, that does sound easier than my life.
But by far, says Parent, golf is most like life in its paradoxical qualities.
His favorite is well-documented: “When you try to hit the ball harder in golf,
it rarely goes further. In life, when we press too hard, it just sets us back.”
So, after a few years of not pressing hard, slowing down my
backswing and finding reward in finding the trees, here are a few ways I’ve
found golf and life are indistinguishable:
1. Defining moments constitute
only about .016% of the game. The rest is just wandering around the woods.
Let’s do the math, shall we? Say you’re average country club
player and you play bogie golf. That means you spend an average of three hours
wandering through trees and over hills and occasionally down a fairway to hit a
small white ball an average of 90 times. Assuming each shot takes two seconds,
you’re actively “playing” a whopping three minutes! Any way you slice it, it’s not a good
trade-off. Still, it’s these three minutes that define the player you are
during the rest of the round, provide all the excitement (a nice euphemism for
intense fear) and form the overall result.
In life, those three minutes translate into a few big
days—marriage, the birth of your child (which is a close second to the day that
child finally moves out of the house), and, if you’re lucky, the day you were
offered the IPO on Microsoft. Those days shape the course of your life; the
rest probably won’t make the resume’ you hand to St. Peter.
So see the golf course for what it is: A long, booby-trapped
laboratory on which you can save thousands in therapist bills. Think of it: You
have two hours and 57 minutes—to figure out just how messed up you really are.
2. More is never enough.
Those Microsoft people know exactly what I’m talking
about—they’re still waiting to sell.
In golf, this same trait translates to less is never little enough. Don’t
believe me? Think back to the best score you ever posted. Say it was an
incredible four over par 76. I’ll bet my lucky putter the first thing you did
over a beer at the 19th hole was say something like: “If I had only
made that four-foot putt on the 11th I would have shot a 75!
Damn!” You then promptly marched to the
putting green and hit 462 four-foot putts.
But don’t worry, this is perfectly natural behavior—I suspect
Tiger Woods wants to hit 500-yard drives.
The application in life is obvious: A constant desire to
trade-up. The equation goes something like this: The amount we spend equals the
amount we make, plus 20% (can you say Visa Gold?). A derivative of this proof
is: The amount we make times two equals the amount we want to make. Simply put,
you always need one more bedroom
Proof? Bill Gates still goes to the office.
3. The closer you get to
your goal, the more illusive it becomes.
Ever notice how reachable those par fives look from the tee
box? And how knee-knocking those three-foot putts are? That’s golf’s way of
demonstrating one of life’s truisms: The devil is in the details.
I once had an idea for an automated cream cheese spreader
(I’m not making this up). It looked great on paper and was going to take the
world by storm, making me a zillionaire. But after a month in the garage and
various cream cheese coated body parts, it was obvious I was no Alex Bell. And
we won’t even discuss my caffeinated beer idea—the sleepless hangover lasted
three days.
Which is why a four-inch diameter cup 500 yards away with six
obstacles in between seems like a reasonable goal.
4. You just never know.
Golf psychologists—and owners of
Now, there are two ways you can go with VRSS. One: You can
totally crumble and complain at every bad shot—excuse me, bad lie—and become the
wrist waggling, foot-shuffling, don’t-even-look-at-the-water,
blame-it-on-the-club, you-coughed-in-my-backswing,
did-you-see-that-tree-hit-my-ball!? I-said-ignore-the-water! kind of golfer we
were all born to be. Or, two: You can gain perspective
and accept and understand and enjoy the
fact that you’ll never, ever hit the ball as far or as straight as John in
Accounting, and that your natural state
is fighting your way out of the bunkers and that’s okay. And as soon as you embrace
this positive attitude adjustment, bingo,
you are actually having fun on the
golf course and scoring lower. (Note:
Terms unfamiliar to most golfers in italics.)
In time, this new and improved, golf course-tested you will
conquer your curmudgeonly real world alter ego and you will be successful and happy and satisfied. More
on this in #5.
5. There’s way too much
emphasis on your score.
For 99% of the people out there, when it comes to life, this
observation is rule 11 in action. Because deep down, we’re all Day-Glo green
with Donald Trump envy. We proved that during the ‘80’s. The remaining
one-percent is Buddhist monks.
In golf, it is our handicaps that define us, or so we think.
We become the guy who’s always trying to break 90, and there’s a comfort in
that. So, says Dr, Parent, often times we’ll find ways to sabotage ourselves
(Do those double and triple bogies on the finishing holes right before you’re
going to set a new personal record ring a bell?). “This way we stay within our
comfort level,” says Parent. “Our friends treat us the same, and we’re the best
average golfer instead of the worst good player in the club tournament.
Familiarity holds a lot of value.”
But, if you can manage to become a more “Zen-full” golfer, I
guarantee that you enjoy the sport infinitely more. To do this there is one
major rule to be followed: STOP KEEPING SCORE! This way, you will never
remember that 22 you took after sending 14 Titlists swimming. It no longer
exists, my young enlightened one. Only the present matters and the beautiful
future that exists in your mind’s eye of one-putting the next green. True
masters of this art also see the truth that there is good and bad in every
shot. These are the maniacs—excuse me, shining ones—who watch your tee shot
bounce off a hundred foot pine and plug in a fairway bunker and have the nerve
to say something like, “Wow, that was the straightest shot you’ve hit all day.
A very positive sign.”
But take heart, there is a down side to their peace. Their
in-the-present, relaxed perspective will undoubtedly let them score better. .
.but they will have no proof.
6. To stay in control,
it’s best just to let go.
This doesn’t mean hurling your new Big Bertha 50 yards down
the fairway every time you tee off. It means relaxing, not forcing things to happen,
but simply letting them develop. This is one of Parent’s biggies, and one of
the hardest things in both life and golf to master. The people who do are, in
life, the most relaxing people to be around. In golf, they’re annoying as hell,
because as they effortlessly tap their ball into the center of the cup from 20
feet away, your putter has the sensitivity of a jack hammer attacking a superball. Needless to say, relaxing takes some work.
Parent explains it this way: “Since there’s so much time
between shots, the mind game is very prevalent in golf. So there’s all sorts of
time to yourself. Our thinking mind wants to make sure a shot comes out a
particular way. This leads to fixation, which leads to tension, which gets in
the way of a good golf swing. In life, the same things create a tunnel vision
that limits your possibilities. Which is why it usually comes down to simply
getting out of your own way.”
7. I’d rather be lucky
than good.
How else do you explain Keanu Reeves’ acting career?
I won’t spend many words on this because chances are
you’ve never experienced it. Under this rule fall all those great hops,
carpet-like lies and balls that skip off water to land two feet from the
pin—you know, all the things that happen to your playing partner.
8. Looking back can only
mess up your future.
In the game of golf, attitude creates better breaks than
anything else, so if your handicap is anything like mine, remembering past
shots will only lead to broken clubs. And that’s a good day. So stay in the present.
. .right up until your shot lands in that deep fairway bunker, at which time
you should immediately zip ahead to the Zenfull
future for the walk to the ball. Then flash back to the present for a quick
stab at your plugged ball, shift to the future again, and repeat. If you’re
lucky, your mind will be reeling so hard by the time you finally roll your last
shot into the cup, you will have no idea
how many strokes you took, which means you have mastered rule #5 without even
trying (always the best way to do anything in golf—rule #6) and taken the first
step toward golf enlightenment.
And if your nosy, score-centered, lost soul of a partner
wants to know what you shot, calmly repeat your new mantra: “Oh, just put me
down for a four.” This will accomplish two things. One: If you succeed with
this on every hole, you will be a scratch golfer in no time. And, two: You will drive your partner
completely batty.
9. The lows, not the
highs, will bring out the real you.
There’s a saying: “It’s easy to be holy at the top of a
mountain.” In golf that translates to: “Sure you’re calm in the parking lot,
but try staying composed after your duck hook crashes through a condo window on
the first tee at the company outing.” As Parent says, composure is a key to
success in anything. He defines it this way: Composure is attaining the
seemingly paradoxical state of total relaxation and intense focus. “It means
you’re in the present and comfortable with where you are and how you’re doing,”
he says. Which means that if you have composure walking to the tee, you won’t
walk off the tee with a bill from the Palm Desert Glass Company.
This would all be very easy; a matter of a deep breath or
two, if it weren’t for the fact that golf/life is unfair. “So it’s not how a
person scores, it’s how they react,” says Parent. Which gets us back to
perception and finding out about your true self. “How do you deal with the bad
breaks?” asks Parent. “Do you cheat? Or do your best from where you are? Do you
make them burdens to be dealt with or see them as challenging opportunities?”
This is another biggie, by the way. Both pros and normal people have
consciously worked their entire lives striving for composure, both on and off
the greens, and failed. So, good luck.
10. It’s all relative.
If the theory of relativity can explain the universe, it
should be able to get me through the back nine at Pelican Hill. First,
relativity means par is not par, really. And don’t be fooled by handicaps and
course ratings; these are crude attempts at forcing everyone to accept the same
paradigm. Every golfer knows this; you’re just in denial.
Parent suggests setting a personal par every time you go to the course.
Factor in things such as how the course matches your play (i.e., many
courses are tough on slices, duffs and toppings), how your tennis elbow is
doing, how annoying your pairing seems. . .This idea actually has some
tradition behind it. “The idea of par was originated in
With that thought, we move on to. . .
11. When all else fails,
rationalize!
This is and always has been man’s ultimate safety net. I’ve found, on the golf course, this quality
is the last line of defense between me and a bag full of pretzel-shaped