The Humiliation Ritual of Golf
What do I practice?
Is my practice focused on improving fundamentals? Or, what about learning how to shape the ball on command? Am I practicing so I can beat my brother over a ten dollar skins match? Do I ever practice for the vain—say, to have the prettiest looking swing to the envy of all?
No.
As long as practice can be described as the application of effort in order to improve a skill. I do not practice. I chase.
I chase feels, swing thoughts, fundamentals, exposure therapy, a swing system, a swing method, self-help, journaling, pattern observations, meditation, breathing exercises, affirmations, acting silly, tour-level preparation, developing my own instincts—all in a desperate attempt to avoid humiliation.
Golf has a way of putting my insecurities on full display. When playing with others, I wear a thin veil of camaraderie and fun; trying to disguise my very open and ugly self for all to see.
Misery loves company, as the expression goes, but I don’t see any friends in sight. When I look at a fellow golfer I see their will to win; their steadfastness in their swing and their lack of care about what I think of it. Yes, I see the angry outburst—even the occasional club throw—but it comes from a completely different place. The angry golfer laments loudly about not playing to their expectation (justified or not); myself, it’s a quiet suffering, realizing that my worst case scenario that I dreaded and chased to avoid over the past week is being fully realized.
Do you know what my perfect round of golf would look like?
It’s not breaking eighty or piping every drive three hundred yards down the middle.
I want nothing more than to be a fly on the wall. To play a nothing-burger round that people scarcely remember. Instead, I am terror-stricken of having to be reminded over and over again until I’m good and dead of how badly I struggled.
How great would it be if, once the round ended, there was a pact to never speak of it again! But anyone who plays this diabolical game knows this isn’t how it works. People love to relish in their scores; or drone on about how surprisingly well they played even though they hadn’t picked up a club in months!
They also love to play coach, giving unsolicited advice. It never comes from a genuine place but from a place of higher authority. A place of superiority. What they don’t realize is that I know more about the causes and effects of a swing and the relationship to how a golf ball flies than they will ever know! I’m just incapable of executing under the slightest bit of pressure.
I often question why I still play.
It is true that I genuinely love the game. I love the beauty and art of it, the history, the equipment, the training aids, the study, and the pipe dream of what it would feel like to play golf without a care.
It is also true that quitting the game would be worse for my psyche than continuing (anyone who struggles with humiliation understands this). The onslaught of questions, the unceasing poking and prodding from family and friends on why I am quitting would simply be too much to handle.
But there’s a third truth as well: there is a small but tremendous force within myself that desires to overcome this crippling fear of humiliation; this fear of man. Maybe I’m being too optimistic (as I sometimes get), but there’s a burning desire to not let this form of Resistance beat me.
How will I accomplish this?
I don’t have a clue. But I will continue chasing.