Practice Talking to Yourself

The practice ground is where the golfer courts his body. If the golfer wishes results, he must work patiently as he tries out new approaches, refreshes himself on old lessons, and develops an ever more subtle conversation between his mind and body. In the course of this conversation, he remembers old advice, rejects some new ideas as being unfit for his body, and modifies other suggestions at his body’s insistence. Learning what doesn’t work is worthy information to be gained on the range. Finally, the player’s conversation with his own body must reach down to the movement of his muscles and his bodily sense of rhythm and flow. Hence, this conversation reaches levels that contemporary psychology and physiology fail to reach. In the same previously-quoted letter, Don Olsen told me the practice field is his “dream world.” He also explained the therapy he finds for practice: I always like practice as much as play. It takes me into another world. When I go out in front of the house to hit my plastic ball, it’s like a visit to a great therapist, only cheaper. Plastic balls (the dimpled kind) are $1.79 a dozen… A dozen balls will last a month. Don went on to describe how Ellsworth Vines, a tennis star in the the 1930s, built his entire golf game on the practice course before he ever set foot on the tournament course. [He] took up golf with an eye to becoming a professional golfer. It was said that he did not actually play a course for a year (or was it two years) but stayed at the practice range and learned to hit all the shots. That’s all he did for a year or two was practice. He learned to putt, chip and pitch and hit sand shots and hooks and slices. Finally, he was ready to actually play a golf course and it is said that he went out and shot around par the very first time he played. A nice story. Must be a lesson in there somewhere. Of course, few players approached the game like Vines or old man Travis. Most players are no more graced in their golfing selfdiscourse than individuals are in identifying their own pleasure and directly pursuing it. It is not accidental that, with notable exceptions, the great golfers began the game when they were young, either as caddies or, like Jones, as members of a golf club. Then they had time and, like the tongues in their mouths, their bodies were supple and free of a lifetime of inhibiting instruction. They were able to learn quickly this new language of mind and body. Quick to imitate and not afraid to dare, young players are able to blend (as adults rarely can) imitation and naturalness into what J. Gordon McPherson, in his Golf and Golfers (1891), called an “individuality of style which can be regulated, but which can never be obliterated after it has been found.” While all players want to keep the grace, many want to do so without practice. Practice for them is a painful duty. They do not understand practice as the means to bring mind and body into harmony. Nor do they lend credence to the subtle advice that practice is a way to hit fewer poor shots. After all, as Jones saw the essence of his own mature game, golf is not about singular great shots; rather, it is about the quality of the player’s average shots. Discounting putts, all but a handful of shots in a round are flawed in one way or another. Jones quoted one wit who stated that, “No man has mastered golf until he has realized that his good shots are accidents and his bad shots good exercise.” Or, stated differently, practice is a way to get shots closer to the center of the clubface. Yet, Jones also wrote, “The secret of beneficial practice is keeping a definite idea upon which to work. If you cannot think of some kink to iron out or some fault to correct, don’t go out. And, if there is a kink or fault, as soon as it has been found and cured, stop immediately and don’t take the risk of unearthing a new one or exaggerating the cure until it becomes a blemish itself.” There have been outstanding players who enjoyed practice more than play. One such player was Harold Hilton, British Amateur champion four times. His last victory came in 1913, on the eve of World War One. In his chapter “PracticeThe Foundation of Excellence,” in Modern Golf (1922), Hilton argued that players are made rather than born. He confessed after decades of golf to still “enjoying to this day an hour all alone by myself on the links more than the pleasure of participating in the most interesting and pleasant match one can imagine.” The great woman golfer, Mickey Wright, agreed: “I have no interest in translating my name into a million dollars, or any amount. To me golf means one thing and always has: the pure pleasure I get from swinging a golf club.”