Mike Dowd's Blog

While I’ve privately railed against all things LIV, and what it’s done to the sport of professional golf, I’ve yet to publicly comment.  What could I say that Brandel Chamblee and other talking heads in the world of golf commentary who aren’t fans already haven’t?…  There are problems on so many levels with what the PIF has done by throwing obscene amounts of money at the game’s biggest names.  But let’s forget a moment the price for one’s integrity, the laughable notion it has anything to do with growing the game, that fact that giving athletes more money to compete less under less pressure arguably kills the most fiercely competitive professional sport and turns it into an exhibition, and that in the end, we’re talking about very wealthy men trying to portray themselves as victims of the greed of other wealthy men.  Let’s instead consider a moment some of the very real victims of this massive money grab; the multitudes of charities the PGA Tour supports annually.  Professional Golf has long donated more money to charity than all other professional sports combined.  St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and a multitude of other charities likely wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the PGA Tour, and countless actual lives wouldn’t have been saved over the years. The existence of LIV threatens all that, as the need for the PGA Tour to increase purses and benefits to players playing it to remain competitive with LIV will steadily siphon off money from those charities to give it to already wealthy golfers to keep them from taking even more money to play exhibitions around the globe for the upstart Saudi-backed endeavor.  The PGA Tour is a 1.5 Billion dollar-a-year business. That’s big business, but the Saudis reportedly offered Tiger Woods alone more than half that just to sign up and show up, and if you look at in composite what they’ve paid a couple of handfuls of the game’s biggest names just to show up it has now eclipsed the entire annual budget of the PGA Tour.  The PGA Tour has donated close to $4 Billion to charities around the world, but as they do their darndest to compete with LIV where do you think at least some of that money is going to come from?..  Much has been said by Mr. Chamblee and others about Sportswashing, and this being an attempt to rehabilitate the image of the Saudi Government through sports.  If that’s true, and the true aim of the Saudis is to get people to forget past transgressions, instead of throwing oil tankers full of cash at rich guys beating a little white ball around idyllic venues the likes of which most people will never be privileged enough to step foot on, maybe they ought to consider helping the less fortunate they are inadvertently hurting by funding cancer research, fighting world hunger, or something similarly philanthropic that will help us all live just a little bit better, or longer, and for others just to remain alive.  Because the way I see it, LIV, by its mere existence, is going to make it harder for some of the less fortunate among us to actually LIVE.  So, as some of you current PGA Tour Players continue to mull the decision of whether or not to sell your souls to LIV, consider how hollow that life will be when you understand what your decision for some will ultimately mean…  It’s in truth, as the immortal Paul McCartney once sang, LIV and let DIE!

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I mentioned to a few people (and raised eyebrows), that the novel I’ve been working on is a political thriller.  I think this was inevitably because of what I do, what I’ve written, and because most people tend to expect writers to stay in their lane and practice the proverbial, “write what you know”.  Stephen King doesn’t write Romantic Comedy (although I think he’d be pretty good at it), John Grisham isn’t likely to be penning any fantasy, and try as she might, and as good a writer as she is (even with pen name Robert Galbraith), JK Rowling hasn’t become a household name in hard-boiled detective fiction.  It’s odd to me, because as readers most of us tend to like to read more than one type of book.  Why should we not as writers want to author more than one type of story?..  I know some of this is in part because fans of what you do tend to want more of what they’re fans of, and so it makes sense for those who’ve got either the pressure of a rabid fan-base, or to pay their mortgages with their pens (and names) to stick to what’s paying the bills.  For those of us like myself, who at this point count their Amazon reviews in the hundreds, instead of thousands, and for whom plunking away at a keyboard at 5:00 am daily is a labor of love, my instinct is to say write whatever the hell makes you happy, because the collective happiness of no great number of the unwashed masses is hinging upon your every keystroke.  And let’s be real, if your life’s ambition it is to have even one person consider you a polymath, or better yet, a Renaissance Man (or woman), how can you get there if you never expand your horizons?…  In truth, I think I’ve got something to say and a story to tell in this arena, even if those who ultimately hear it are counted in the hundreds instead of thousands, and if I don’t get it out of me I’ll regret not having done so.  I also like to challenge myself, just to see if I’m up to it, and I love creating new characters, both complex and conflicted, and I think this setting will allow me to create some that would not just be out of place, but lack credibility in writing what I usually do.  That doesn’t mean there won’t be some crumbs of golf sprinkled throughout, at least in some small way because hey, I probably can’t help myself at some point.  At this point, though, those crumbs are few and far between, but it’s early in the game, and there’s still time to for me to find a way to weave them in.  Because as those of us in the business know, the foursome in front of me is forever at least two holes behind.  Stay tuned…

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I was reminded this weekend upon seeing that what is probably my favorite non-golf novel ever, A Gentleman in Moscow, was made into a series (If you’re inclined to watch it I beg you to read the book first.  As much as I’m impatient to watch it, I believe it will be impossible to truly capture what is so special about it on film) that golf is, or at least should be, A Gentleman’s (and woman’s) Game.  Despite the shenanigans that are the Waste Management Open, the attempts of LIV to turn it into some sort of sideshow exhibition, and the fact that Happy Gilmore 2 is happening, golf is and should remain the last bastion of true sportsmanship and decorum the sporting world has to offer.  I know I now technically qualify as an old fuddy-duddy, but I do believe in my heart of hearts that this sentiment is timeless, and not the out-of-touch ranting of just another one of the older generation bemoaning kids these days in the way that every generation inevitably does.  There is a reason golfers have been the darlings of corporate America over the years, and the types of spokespersons so many of the world’s largest corporations want their logos associated with.  It’s that they largely represent those corporations, and themselves by extension, well.  Are golfers perfect, no, and I don’t need to bring up those who’ve on occasion done things less than gentlemanly (or womanly) to prove my point because the fact that you can only bring a few of those individuals or instances to mind does it for me.  That said, you need only search golfers fighting on YouTube to see that not every golfer out there these days is comporting themselves like a gentleman or woman, so I think it’s high time we collectively take a look at our own actions and determine if we’re a part of the problem or a part of the solution.  Even at my own club of late, there’s been an unfortunate rise in the type of incidents that precede this sort of behavior.  People accusing others of sandbagging, or of cheating, people actually cheating, and some even railing in indignation at those who’ve had the nerve (and the courtesy) to bring up the fact that they might actually have just inadvertently broken the rules in their ignorance.  Where did all this hostility come from?…  We’re better than this folks.  We’re golfers, not Oakland Raiders fans, which by definition means we shouldn’t be challenging each other to pistols at dawn with every affront (like they did in the Count’s day) or comporting ourselves like those who square off nose to nose with a scowl of unconcealed hatred in advance of heading into the Octagon.  We should be the gentlemen and women of the sporting world my friends, the Shining City Upon a Hill amongst the collective arenas of competition.  So before it’s too late, and we unwittingly give up carrying the banner as the last bastion of appropriate behavior and true sportsmanship, we need to take a collective look in the mirror and remember a true golfer does these basic things…  

Calls a penalty on themselves if appropriate, not waiting for it to be noticed by others.Tries their best on every shot, and records every shot they’ve taken.  No more, no less.Congratulates their opponent when they win, not accuse them of sandbagging.Kindly, respectfully, and patiently points out situations when a playing partner is obviously ignorant or unaware of the rules.Accepts said situations with similar grace and patience, and thanks those whose honest intentions are to educate and inform, rather than railing at them.

Is all that really so terribly hard to do?..  I hope not, but as Count Rostov so sagely advised, “If patience weren’t so easily tested, it would hardly be a virtue.” Hoping to see you on the course, not in the Octagon!

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A little update since I haven’t posted in forever.  Why?..  I’m busy raising two gorgeous girls and with a great job that requires at least 60 hours a week.  For all you golfers, my oldest received a scholarship to play in college at Jessup University next semester after she graduates.  Big time proud poppa moment and so happy for her.  My youngest is working towards that same goal, but as a competitive volleyball player, and it’s so fun to watch her grow in her sport.  I’m definitely blessed, not the least of which by a wife who puts up with my crazy schedule and allows me to do everything I do while holding the rest of it together.  I’m back to writing at 5:00 am each day again, though, and I have finally published CHASING THE DREAM, the novel I wrote about five years ago that’s been sitting on my hard drive ever since.  It’s for all of you rabid fans of the mystery/romantic/suspense/golf genre (I think I invented it), but I hope it’s more than anything just a great life tale whether you know a whit about golf or not.  I’m not out there promoting it, this is a labor of love after all (and did I mention I’ve got a day job), just sort of wondering if it’s good enough to grow organically.  They say word of mouth is why most people read a book, so recommend it to a friend if you enjoy it, and while it is on Amazon, you can always email me for a free copy.  Looking forward to hearing from you.  Cheers!

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Practice, as most of us employ it, is borderline worthless.  This is because most of the practices typically employed during practice, have little chance of improving our performance under pressure.  The type of practice that improves performance is, for the most part, rarely engaged in because practicing under typical “practice”conditions does very little to simulate the thoughts, feelings, and emotions we deal with once our performance actually means something.  If we want to really improve our performance when it matters, we need to put ourselves in situations, often and repeatedly, that simulate the pressure we experience during competition. And nowhere is this statement likely more true than on the putting green.

The art and skill of putting is a funny thing.  No element of the game requires less inherent hand-eye coordination or athletic talent. Putting’s simplicity makes it golf’s great equalizer.  You roll a ball along the ground with a flat-faced stick in the general direction of a hole nearly three times its size.  Sure, green speeds vary wildly, and there are those diabolical breaks to deal with, but despite that, putting is truly golf’s most level playing field, the one element of the game where even the highest handicappers can potentially compete straight up with the game’s most skilled.  At the same time, there are few other situations (other than maybe the 1sttee) when we feel as much pressure as we do on the putting green.

Ben Hogan, during the latter part of his career, (years that were marred by poor putting) claimed that putting shouldn’t even be a part of the game because, in his words,

 

“There is no similarity between golf and putting; they are two different games, one played in the air, and the other on the ground.”

 

Now Hogan suffered a serious case of the Yips later in his career, and while this statement was likely uttered following a frustrating round of missed 3-footers, it serves to highlight not only the differences about putting the rest of the game, but how taxing on the nerves it can be for even the games’ greats.  Its inherent simplicity, the slow pace of the stroke, and how much time we are given to contemplate it, are in truth what sets us up.  It’s golf’s free throw.  We very often know exactly what to do, and how to do it, like when we’re faced with one of those straight 3-footers, but with more time to think, it opens the door wide for the type of second-guessing that arises during those moments we feel a bit of pressure. And that’s the biggest part of the problem.

Now the self-sabotage that leads to missing relatively short easy putts, the reasons behind it, and practices to overcome that is something for a different article, because what I really want to get into at the moment is a practice that I think can help insure you never end up in that desperate place to begin with.  Most of us rarely practice our putting, and when we do, it’s in about the most useless way we can.  We’ve all done it.  You grab a sleeve of balls just prior to the round, head to the practice green, and begin rolling them from hole to hole around the typical 9-hole route.  Now I could go into a whole host of reasons why this isn’t very helpful, but the #1 reason it’s such a pitifully poor practice is this.  There is no pressure.

Early in my career, I worked at a club where there was at least one money game on the putting green every day, and many nights too.  The members (and staff) putted aces, 5 for $5, rabbits, and many other games for hours on end, and when the sun went down they often switched on the clubhouse roof-mounted floodlights and continued into the wee hours of the morning.  Many days (and nights) I witnessed hundreds of dollars change hands on that putting green, occasionally from my own, but in my younger days that was fortunately an infrequent occurrence.  Those money games were a cherished part of the culture of that club and an incredibly good arena in which to learn to practice under pressure. To this day, I’ve never seen as many really good pressure putters (many of very average handicaps) as I did during that period, and when I think back upon it it’s no small wonder either.

The problem with practicing golf, or just about any other sport for that matter, is that it’s difficult to practice under the types of pressure we compete in. And nowhere is that more true than when it comes to putting.  In 4 or 5 hours on the golf course we might only have a half dozen putts that really mean something, and maybe only 2 or 3 of those knee-knocking 3 footers with the match on the line or the chance to win a bet.  When I was younger and playing in those money games on the putting green I had a meaningful putt every minute or two, for hours on end, and you either learned to handle that pressure pretty quickly or your hard-earned paycheck was being signed over to someone else. Now I’m not bringing this up to encourage gambling, as I know for some people that can become a serious issue, but rather to point out how the opportunity to practice repeatedly under pressure helped me learn to deal with those situations. And with how infrequently we even get the opportunity to face that same pressure when we actually play, it’s important to try do our best to simulate it as often as we can during practice.

So when it comes to my own students these days, I don’t necessarily encourage gambling (I don’t discourage a littlebit of it either), but I do encourage putting and practicing for something.  I’ll get three of them together on the putting green and say look, “You guys putt for 30 minutes and the loser has to do 100 push-ups”or something similar.  I’ll tell students to putt their parent for who has to mow the lawn, do the dishes, or some other mundane household chore neither of them really wants to do.  The point is to have something on the line, something that will make it really hurt to lose.  You can even do it by yourself.  Wait to practice putting right before lunch or dinner and make a pact with yourself that you can’t eat until you make 15 3-footers in a row or something similar. Because until you find a way to practice under pressureall that practice is really just that.  Practice. And so you shouldn’t be surprised if, when the chips are down, it doesn’t translate to improved performance.

 

 

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In my writing (and teaching) I’ve striven to constantly break from the norm, tread the paths less trodden, and help the players I coach or people who read my articles and books in ways that move beyond the typical.  That being said, I’ve decided to finally time jump on that proverbial bandwagon of clichés and write a 5 tips type article.

Now, I’ve seen this headline (or something close to it) on the cover of hundreds of issues of Golf Digest or Golf Magazine over the years, but up until now, I’ve passed them off as the mosttired form of golf instruction journalism (I don’t even read them).  But if you’ve heard of click-bait, those teaser headlines that suck you into clicking on them by promising more than they typically deliver, there’s one undeniable truth.  5 ways, 5 tips, or 5 reasons type articles, no matter how many you’ve fallen for before, deliver the goods.  I suppose it says more than a little something about our collective attention spans (and gullibility), but since this approach is so effective, I decided this old fisherman was overdue to throw his bucket hat in the ring and set the hook.

Stop hitting it straight! If you’re struggling to break triple digits you’ve probably own a two-way miss.  Most of the best players in the world take one side of the course out of play by rarely hitting a straight ball. They’re typically moving the ball off the tee in a direction that favors their most natural shot shape.  Now for most of us that’s a fade, and that’s a good thing, so stop fighting that fade and just play for it.  There’s a reason Lee Trevino once said, “you can talk to a fade, but a hook won’t listen.”  And Trevino wasn’t alone, as many of the most consistent drivers of the ball (including Hogan) played the fade, but what’s most important is to play for your most natural shot shape off the tee and stop trying to hit it straight!
Stop short-siding yourself! Huh?  Listen to network golf coverage and you’ll hear the commentators mention how a player short-sided him or herself, but like many viewers, you likely have no idea what they’re talking about.  Short-siding yourself is missing the green to the side where you have the least amount of green to work with in relation to the flag. It’s the kiss of death in golf, and something good players seldom do.  Chipping (read bump-and-run type shot) is much easier, and you pay a far less severe penalty for a mishit chip than a pitch (lob shot).  Aim for the long side of the flag on pins closer than 20 feet from the edge and your misses won’t keep ending up in a places where the unfortunate results of your next shot are “chunks”, “skulls”, and “chili-dips”.
Sleep with your Sand Wedge! Lots of players pitch with a pitching wedge, lob with a lob wedge, and relegate their sand wedge to only those shots they’re forced to endure from the beach.  Now most of us don’t practice our short games enough to begin with, and if we’re splitting what little time we spend out there on the practice green between three (or four) different greenside wedges then we’re not likely to be very good with any of them.  The Sand Wedge is the most versatile club in the bag, and you should learn to hit every shot inside 50 yards with it, and hit them proficiently, before you branch out to different clubs.  I grew up with nothing but an old Cobra Trusty Rusty 56-degree sand wedge that I learned to hit from every conceivable lie and situation and I knew exactly what I could do with it and what I couldn’t.  Find that one club and practice with it until you know and trust your short game with it implicitly, and you’ll be surprised at how much pressure that ends up taking off your long game.
Quit “hitting”your putts! If you can’t break 100, chances are you don’t putt very well, and if you don’t, you likely have poor distance control.  Most people who struggle to control their distances with the putter, “hit”their putts, they don’t “stroke it”or “roll it”.  “Hitting”a putt is the inevitable result of a putting stroke that is too small for a given distance. One thing I consistently preach with my Academy students is the bigger the putt the bigger the putting stroke. If you’re hitting it progressively harder as you get farther and farther from the hole, try instead to let that stroke get progressively longer, and watch how much more often that first putt rolls up to within tap-in range.
Start closer to the hole! There’s only one reason the average men’s handicap in this country hovers around 18 while the average woman’s around 33, but it’s a very big one.  Distance!  The average woman hits the ball 140 yards off the tee while the average man hits it 210. Over the course of 18 holes that’s about 1300 yards, and it doesn’t account for the approaches. Research has been done which suggests that, in order for players to be able to hit most greens in regulation, they should play from tees that are about 30 times their average drive.  That would put most women at tees that measure 4200 yards, and most men at 6300 yards. Sadly, most clubs aren’t offering tees at 4200 yards, but we should be, and until then we should all be realistic about how far we hit the ball off the tee, multiply that number by 30, and find the closest set of tees we can to that number and play from there.  And if we do that, we not only might finally break 100, and speed up the pace of play at the same time, but we just might have a bit more fun in the process!

So there’s your 5 tips!  And now that I’ve guaranteed you’ll all be breaking that milestone number in your game, I expect the editors of those bigtime publications to come knocking on my inbox for that 101stcliché cover story.  Hope it helps!

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PLAY THE PERCENTAGES FOR SHORT GAME SUCCESS

Learning to score in golf, is often about playing the percentages.  When it comes to learning to do that, there’s an old adage that I’ve been using to start just about every beginning short game clinic I’ve given over the past quarter century.  “Putt when you can, chip if you can’t putt, and pitch only if you have to.” In truth, I’ve been using it so long I’ve forgotten where I first heard it and who it’s originally attributed to, but the reason I’ve stuck with it all these years is that it’s every bit as valid today as it was back then.

Putting is the easiest of the three, with the least downside for poor execution.  When you’re on the fringe, or the closely-mown approach just short of the green, putting is usually your best option for a handful of reasons.  First, hitting from those areas with your putter means you won’t be lofting the ball in the air and the lower the intended trajectory of the shot, the smaller the swing you need to make.  This also means there will be virtually no spin on the ball once you hit it, making the roll-out predictable.  And finally, using a putting stroke all but assures you are going to hit the ball first with little to no turf interfering with the solidness of contact either.

Chipping is next in line when it comes to ease of execution and low downside.  If you’re anywhere around the green, and have more green between your ball and the hole than rough, you definitely want to chip it.  Now before I explain why, it’s important to know the difference between a chip and a pitch because these two shots are confused about as often as the words they’re, their, and there are in elementary school english classes.   A chip is a shot that spends more time on the ground and a pitch spends the majority of its short life in the air.  Chips, for reasons similar to putts, are easier shots to execute than pitches because the requisite swing isn’t terribly big and has little wrist or hand action, while the motion combined with the typically lower lofted clubs used when chipping impart less spin on the ball, making roll-out easier to predict.  

Pitching is the hardest of the three shots to consistently execute, with the biggest downside for failure.  But despite my misgivings, there are unfortunately just some occasions where we can’t get around having to pitch the ball.  And really, who wouldn’t want to be able to pitch it up in the air high and soft and land it near the pin like the proverbial butterfly with sore feet, check it a bit, or even (gasp!) spin it back like the pros?  There’s just a tiny little problem with that sexy looking lob, though.  The high reward comes with high risk, and the consequences for poor execution are shots as colorfully named as The Chunk, The Duff, The Skull,  and The Chili-Dip.  And unless our foursome is conditioned to hear the even more colorful language that often accompanies those vain attempts to execute one of golf’s most difficult shots, we should keep those pitch shots in the closet as much as possible, trotting them out in only the most extreme situations.  

In the end, it’s important to be at least somewhat proficient at all the short game shots, but learning to score is learning to play the percentages, and when it comes to getting the ball close consistently the odds are stacked in favor of putting first, chipping second, and pitching third.  We can learn to hit good pitches with the right club and technique, but it’s not the good shots we’re worried about, it’s your misses, and I promise that your misses when you putt first, chip if you can’t putt, and pitch only if you have to, will be more of what I like to call livable misses.  And when we learn to choose shots whose worst results can still be worked with, we’ll start to score better even if we’re not hitting the ball any better. Let me know what you think.

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This Thursday The PGA Championship, as it celebrates its 100thanniversary at Bellerive Country Club just outside of St. Louis, will also mark the end of an era.  Since the 1960’s, The PGA has been the final major of the year, the last leg of the modern “Grand Slam”of professional golf.  All that will change next year, as the event moves to the third weekend in May, and moves from a major afterthought, to being the most important major in the on-going growth of interest in our sport here in The U.S..

The “Grand Slam” has long been considered competitive golf’s ultimate achievement.  This is more than a bit of a misnomer, though, since it is something that has never been accomplished in the modern game, and is simultaneously considered by most to be all but unattainable.  Sure, Bobby Jones won what was calledthe “Grand Slam”back in 1929 as an amateur, but that was back when two of the four legs were amateur events, excluding most of the most accomplished players of the day.  And the immortal Ben Hogan, in his “Triple Crown”season of 1953, when he won The Masters, The U.S. Open, and The Open Championship in succession, in theory had a shot at it.  But at that time The Open Championship and The PGA overlapped, making it impossible for him to compete in both, and the level of competition was nowhere near what it is today. In modern professional golf no player has ever even come in to The PGA Championship with a shot at the “Grand Slam”, leaving the season’s final major to always feel like it’s finishing on a bit of an anti-climactic note.  So maybe it’s time to stop wishing, hoping, dreaming, and talking about someone winning the “Grand Slam”, and instead, take a cue from Hogan’s immortal season, and start talking about someone winning the new “Triple Crown”of American Professional Golf that The PGA has set the stage for by making its move.

By moving to May, for the first time ever the American Majors will be conducted in three consecutive months.  The PGA claims they did this for a number of reasons, including the addition of golf to the Summer Olympics, the fact that cooler May weather opens up a wider array of options for host courses, and to keep the season ending Fed Ex Cup Playoffs from having to compete with the start of Football Season.  But there’s an unintended consequence of this move that will ultimately make The PGA Championship the most pivotal, and important major in seasons to come.

Like The Preakness in horse-racing, The PGA Championship now becomes the second leg of what I will call the new “Triple Crown” of American Major Championships.  Being only a month apart, winners of The Masters each year will now come into The PGA, the year’s second major, with more momentum.  They will also contest that second leg under conditions most players feel are a fairer and more typical test of golf than the often brutal slog The USGA sets them up for at The U.S. Open.  The result of this should be that more future Masters Champions will not only come into that second leg feeling like they’ve a realistic shot, but, as we see in horse-racing many years, could come out of it with a shot at the “Triple Crown”.  The interest and excitement this will generate, and the build-up to The U.S. Open will increase ten-fold if we see a player winning the first two majors of the year, just as it does many years for The Belmont Stakes, when millions of eyeballs tune in because the storyline transcends the sport.  It doesn’t matter that (not unlike The Belmont) the course setup and conditions of The U.S. Open favors a very different type of player than The Masters and PGA Championships before it will.  What matters is more players at least having a shot at it. The move up of The PGA Championship will facilitate that, and with a more attainable goal, like the new“Triple Crown”of American Professional Golf, we should be in store for some much more exciting golf seasons in the very near future.  And The PGA Championship will go from being a bit of an afterthought, to being The Major most pivotal to American professional golf’s new ultimate accomplishment.

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Well, it’s launch day for my first novel COMING HOME, and I need to start off by thanking everyone involved.  To my early beta readers – Phil & Kathy Kleinheinz, John Dequine, and Lisa Cope.  Your feedback on the first readable draft of the novel was invaluable and really helped me shape the final version in ways I wouldn’t have been able to on my own.  I hope when you get a chance to read it again you’ll not only enjoy it even more, but be able to sift through it and know which parts were a direct result of your influence.  To my editor, Erica Garvin, I hope you know how much I appreciated working with you and that I learned even more about the craft of writing a readable manuscript from your edits.  I don’t think I’ll ever quite look at a comma again in the same way!

Coming Home, my first full length novel, is now available for pre-order on Amazon at

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FBN12QL

Here’s a sneak preview of the first chapter to give you a feel for the book until it launches on August 7th in time for The 100th PGA Championship at Bellerive.  Hope you enjoy…

COMING HOME

 

“It’s a funny thing coming home.  Nothing changes.  Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. Then you realize what’s changed is you.”

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

 

A week after suffering the biggest setback of his life in his first attempt at PGA Tour Qualifying School, Tyler decided to crawl back home in search of his coach Mack. In truth, he had nowhere else to go. In his most despairing moments, he had half entertained the idea of quitting the stupid game altogether and going to work in his old man’s garage.  But, when Tyler stopped by to give him the obligatory explanation for what had gone wrong, that first smell of grease had unleashed a flood of memories that only reinforced why he had gone to college in the first place and what golf was for him: his ticket out of Poplar Bluff.

It’s not that Poplar Bluff was a bad place, but in Tyler’s mind, it was more one stoplight than bright lights; a small Midwest town just a bit too bereft of any real opportunities besides marrying his high school sweetheart and settling down to a life of comfortable mediocrity.  A simple life whose highlights would have likely included coaching Little League, starring in the Thursday night softball league, and turning enough wrenches during the week that he’d have some extra spending money to play poker with his high school buddies on the weekend.  Besides, that ship had sailed when Katherine, the girl who would have happily played Bonnie to his Clyde in just about anything if he’d just asked, and the only part of that vision he regretted leaving behind, had gone.  He couldn’t blame her.  She’d run off to chase her own dreams after he’d broken her heart by telling her he needed to chase his, none of which she had pointedly told him apparently included her.

His old man was another part of the problem. Jack Foster was larger than life in Poplar Bluff.  A legendary high school quarterback who had gone on to star at Mizzou for three years; an All-American and Heisman Trophy runner-up.  That was all before an ugly knee injury ended his NFL dreams and sent him back home along with his own high school sweetheart to start a business with his other true love: cars.  Jack Foster was still a legend in Poplar Bluff, though.  And, to get out from under that big shadow was what had led to Tyler disappointing his folks, and just about everyone else in town, by accepting a scholarship from rival Vanderbilt.  He argued that it was one of the top golf programs in the country, and played a better schedule than Mizzou.  But in truth, he was tired of being ‘Jack’s boy’ and wanted to strike his own course. Jack had been supportive of his son’s decision to play golf, partly because his own larger-than-life father, Jack Sr., had introduced Tyler to the game, and partly because Jack came to the realization that his ‘boy’ didn’t have the requisite size to likely make football or basketball something he could excel at.

“Hey, Pop,” Tyler said as he walked into the all-too-familiar sight of his old man with his head under the hood of someone else’s classic car.

“Son,” Jack Foster said in way of response without looking up from what he was doing. “Can you hand me a 3/16?”

Tyler did as he was asked, grabbing the wrench from the opened giant Snap-On tool chest that seemed to follow his old man around wherever he went.

Jack finished tightening up a couple more bolts and then finally broke the silence by grabbing a grease rag to wipe his hands and looking up from under the hood.

“So what are you gonna do now?” he asked.

“You heard?” Tyler asked.

“Of course I heard,” his old man said flatly. “You think we live in a vacuum here?  I know this town’s a bit backwater for your big city tastes, son, but we have managed to get the Internet.”

“Well, I’m gonna call Mack.” Tyler said as if that statement alone was sufficient.

“Aren’t you a little worried you might have burned that bridge, son?” his old man said only half condescendingly. “The man only spent a decade teaching you how to play, and treating you like one of his own, and then you snub him when you likely could have used him most. Besides, I think your problems might run a bit deeper than just how you swing the club.”

Tyler listened to the rest of his old man’s I-told-you-so speech, partly out of respect and partly because he knew he had earned it.

“I’ll make it right, Pop,” Tyler finally said once his old man had said his piece. “I screwed up.  I should have taken Mack.  I know that now.  But I had my reasons, and it just didn’t work out.  Mack will understand, and he’ll help me get back on track.”

“So you’re not giving up on this thing?…  I spent a good portion of what I had set aside to re-do the kitchen for your mother to finance your little meltdown. How are you going to pay for the next go-round?  Where are you planning on living?  The way I see it, you need a job, son.”

This was the part of the conversation Tyler had dreaded most.  It was half statement, half offer.  It was bad enough having to come back and explain to his old man what had happened, but having to ask for his help in the same breath was the worst part.  He hadn’t finished his degree at Vanderbilt, falling 12 units short of a liberal arts degree that in the back of his mind would have allowed him to get a job as a P.E. teacher someday as a worst-case scenario.  His eligibility had run out, and when he chose to go to Q-School that fall, instead of returning to Vandy to finish his degree, neither of his folks had been too happy.  But they begrudgingly supported him, at least partly because they knew it was his dream and because everyone knew he was that good.  The other part, Tyler suspected, was because his old man was getting to the age when he wanted to start taking a step back, and he needed help to do that. Tyler knew he half hoped that if the golf thing didn’t work out he could ultimately talk his son into coming back home to work in the garage, and they could put a plan in place for him to take it over someday.

The problem with that plan, and why Tyler had always resisted spending too much time around the garage, was that it meant giving up and giving in.  Golf was his ticket out of Poplar Bluff, and he knew his old man would want a full-time commitment, which meant giving up on his dream.  And he wasn’t ready to give up on a goal he’d been working toward for the past decade.  Tyler also secretly felt that his old man resented the fact that his son might make it in a way that he never had.  As good of a life as his old man had built for himself, and as much as he was still a legend around town, Tyler knew there was a part of his old man that still dreamed about what might have been.  And when Tyler talked about getting out of Poplar Bluff, he would always disgustedly say something like, “This life isn’t good enough for you, son?” or “What do you think you’re gonna find out there you can’t have here?” He didn’t understand.

“I think Mack might take me on as an assistant,” Tyler finally replied. “That way I could work in the mornings and practice every afternoon until dark.”

Tyler knew that wasn’t the answer his old man wanted to hear, but he bit his tongue for the moment and simply said, “Well, even if he does take you on, son, that’s not enough money to live on.  You plan on moving home or have you got other ideas?”

Tyler didn’t have other ideas, unfortunately. Moving back home after living large in Nashville as the ‘Big Man on Campus’, at least as large as a college golf star can, seemed like such a huge step backwards from what he’d gotten accustomed to, but he didn’t have a lot of other options at the moment.

“Would that be a problem?” Tyler finally said. “Between work and practice, and playing in all the local events I can get in, I really wouldn’t be there all that often.”

“I’ll talk to your mother,” his old man said after a long pause.

Tyler knew his mother wouldn’t object – in fact, she’d be ecstatic.  He’d called on his way home to break the bad news to her ahead of going to see his old man and she’d already assured him he was more than welcome to move home for the time being until he decided what his next move was.  Sure, she’d work on him every day, try to get him to settle down, listen to his father, and finish his degree so he’d have the backup plan that his own father never had.  But in that brief call he’d understood that she relished the idea of having her only child home again.

“Thanks, Pop,” Tyler said. “I’m going to call Mack and see if I can go by and see him today.”

 

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