Hope Springs Eternal

Filed in archive Golf Wanderings on April 19, 2007

The weather forecast has finally improved. And I may just be able to get outside this weekend and hit balls for the first time this spring.

There's always high anticipation when I hit that initial bucket of balls at the beginning of a new season.

It's because a new season heralds new possibilities, a renewal of hope that, this year, the scores and handicap will come down. This year, I will finally GET the swing.

But, like life itself, there is usually a balance point between anticipation and realization when it comes to golf. It's never as bad as it could be but it never quite lives up to the visualization exercises conducted during winter months.

A winter layoff never does my wobbly golf swing much good. I liken the swing to learning a language; if you don't use it, you lose it. And all you can remember are the swear words...

Of course, I don't lose it entirely. But often, whatever "ah-ha" moments I experienced around swing technique late the season before, are usually gone come the new season.

The first mental note I make to self is often how bad my timing is. Kind of like a stand-up comic who should have stayed in the accounting program.

So, there's a re-learning period during which I get back in touch with the various moving parts of my body and slowly corral them all into a cohesive motion.

And then the ball striking starts to improve again. Now we're making advances and the sun is warmer on the face and the birds are chirping.

But this season, I will supplement the shaking off of cobwebs with something revolutionary: I will book a lesson with my teaching pro.

Tony Robbins has said it many times in the pursuit of excellence: don't reinvent the wheel; just do what the experts do.

At the start of every season, Jack Nicklaus got together with his lifelong teacher, Jack Grout and the two of them went over every aspect of Jack's swing, from grip to impact position and everything in between.

Me, I would wait until late in the season when my frustration levels were sky-high and the good weather days growing fewer and fewer. And then I would take a couple of lessons.

My game would go "zing" as if it had received a shot of nitrous oxide directly into the cylinders. I would finish the season on a high and be ready to charge out of the gate in the spring.

And, of course, the cycle would begin again.

So this weekend, I will hit balls. Very soon after, I will take my swing in for a check-up.

Yes, this year is going to be different. I can feel it.