Defining sadness.

After a few weeks reading this wonderful forum, I have determined the following: I am sad.

I am sad because I realize the following things about myself and my game of golf:

1. I have no concept of "feel." I made a post asking if anyone gloves on each hand and someone responded with the note that wearing a glove on my dominant hand (my right) might interfere with club feel. Of this, I have no concept. It's not that I cannot feel a club in my hand -- it's that I cannot make use of the difference between having feel and not. Whether I swing with gloves on or without, my performance is the same. Same for putting. I feel like I've been treated to a tour through wine-tasting country but suddenly find I'm missing my sense of taste.

2. I cannot put swing tips into practice. I have never been able to do this. In the sport of bowling, which I'm much better at, I take coaching easily. I can quickly pick up what a coach is telling me and can repeat it. I can then learn from it and even improvise off those tips. In golf, no. My game is built around the things I've found that personally allow me the greatest repeatability in my swing, however awkward those things might be. Now take a look at my index and see how well this really works for me.

3. My physical game stinks. I need to drop some weight but more so than that, my knees are shot due to old injuries in other sports. One of the truest statements I've ever heard is "Be good to your knees -- you'll miss them when they're gone." Mine aren't completely gone, but they're headed out the door with the car keys in their hands.

4. The finances of the game are leaving me behind. I would wager I'm in the bottom third in terms of means among everyone here, and unless I want to play in a pasture I have to come up with some serious coin to play this game. It's hard to get better when every fairway lie you get is a bad one. I hope this trend in golf reverses; 10 years ago, I could ride 18 at a pretty decent course for $25. The minimum these days is probably $35-$40 in my area.

5. If you play golf with your father and are close to him, I have a piece of advice for you: Remember everything you can about every round. Save old scorecards. Keep his old clubs in a closet somewhere even if no one uses them. Take lots of pictures. Give your dad free relief out of the trees or better yet, find out what ball he plays and carry a spare or two so you can "find" his ball for him every now and then. As you can probably guess by now, mine is gone, three years now. The sport isn't the same for me as it used to be. What I'd give for just one more round.

Jess

That last one hit the spot for me. I don't think about it too often but there will be a day when my father won't be around. Gotta cherish the memories and the fun times out on the course. Golf has brought my father and I closer though. It's great.

Head up mate, I know the feeling having lost my mum four years ago. Try and enjoy every round of golf in your dads memory, enjoy the past memories you have playing with your dad, focus on the positives of what you had, not the negatives of what you have lost.

My dad is still around, but I was a late child (the youngest in my family) and he had quit playing by the time I started. I still try to talk him into a round now and again, even just to have him ride along, but no luck yet.

I take my sons out (12 and 6). The older boy more, naturally. Just a week or so ago, we went out and he had some really nice shots (he has just started taking a few lessons). Watching him bounce around with that big smile on his face was great.

As we were leaving the course, he was talking about a shot on a par 3 (maybe 130 yards) where he swung and lost his balance, but didn't fall until after contact with the ball, which ended up just right of the green (his best tee shot of the day). He said, "Someday, when I am taking my son golfing, I hope I remember this and can tell him about when I was golfing with my Dad and fell down but hit the best shot of my life. Maybe I'll even bring him here, and show him which hole it was!"

He was excited about the shot more than anything, but it was a moment where you could tell how much it meant to him to be golfing with me. I got a little choked up. To date, it is my best moment in golf.

Jess,

I really like your #5 speech. Nice. Mine is gone as well. Truth is, he was always the guy finding MY ball!

How to help with 'feeling' the club. I took lessons a few years back for the first time. Had the instructor began with the short game during lessons, I would have gained much more.

Remember that fro-haired painter on PBS Sunday mornings who painted the 'happy little cloud living over there' on his paintings? My instructor was THAT guy ... almost. Around the green with sand wedges, he was constantly saying, 'nice, soft hands on this shot' in the voice of the painter guy from PBS.

"Nice soft hands here on this shot."

"Soft hands, ball just a little up in our stance"

"Nice high, soft shot."

Ok buddy, I GET it!

And boy was he right. As soon as you get the right grip pressure, which is slightly more than just enough to keep the club from flying out of your hands on a swing, you really become aware of your hands and 'feel' that people talk about.

Maybe try some of that 'nice soft hands,' around the practice green before your next round. Worked for me!

dave

Ok, don't make me cry now...

Thanks for that tip. I'll try it sometime. I've tried many different kinds of grip pressures, but I guess what I'm most missing is that I can't feel nuances between different pressures very much.

In bowling, I can make very, very minute adjustments and feel them. In golf, no matter how long or hard I practice, it just doesn't come to me. But I'll keep trying. Jess

I'd like to comment on this post, but really I'd like to see it published in a golf magazine more.

I appreciate that compliment. If you're referring to No. 5, I could write a book just on that subject, and I could bore you to death with the story of what kind of man my Dad was. Highlights included born during the Great Depression, nearly died at age 8, lied his way into the Marine Corps and served in Midway in World War II, worked his way through college (graduating in three years with two majors and three minors), went to medical school on the G.I. Bill, made house calls up to the day he retired, faithful to my Mom for 53 years and never had a cross word to say about anyone. Not hard to understand why I miss my old golfing partner.

Jess