Another Day at the Driving Range

                I haven’t been spending much time at the golf driving range lately.  In truth, I’ve let my game slip away a little bit.  I had some health issues a few years back and foolishly embraced the notion that if I couldn’t play at a certain level, I wasn’t going to play at all.  And, certainly, if I wasn’t going to play, I wasn’t going to waste my time practicing.

                However, I finally decided to accept my physical limitations and start practicing again in the hopes of making it back out onto those hallowed grounds that laymen describe as a golf course, but real golfers think of as the closest thing that they can find that represents a little glimpse of heaven on earth.  The going was a little tough at first.  I had forgotten the little nuances that made my golf swing work.  For example, I forgot that I need to hold the right elbow close to my body in the initial stages of the backswing in order create the correct swing plane.  As for the follow through, I need to rotate the right hand over the left through impact in order to avoid slicing or pushing the ball.  At least I think that those are truisms that apply to my golf swing.  Maybe they’re not and that is the reason that I’m not able to replicate my old golf swing, which wasn’t pretty, but was effective enough for me to play at an average level and to enjoy every minute on the golf course, no matter my score.

                So, yesterday, I headed out to the local driving range in hopes of discovering or rediscovering those golf swing nuances which would allow me to play at my former level.  I bought a small bucket of range balls, which, upon inspection, looked like they had been recovered from the bottom of the retention pond which masqueraded as a water hazard on the second hole of the golf course adjacent to the range.  As I bought the balls, I ruminated on the fact that I was giving the guy who owned the golf course the equivalent of ten cents a ball in order to enjoy the privilege of taking one whack at each of those forty balls.  That’s quite a racket, if you can get away with it.  And, he can get away with it, since he owns the only driving range in a thirty mile radius.   But, hey, my rationalization was that I was getting some exercise, enjoying the warm sun on the back of my neck and feeling one with nature for a few minutes.   Plus, I was improving my golf game, or at least I was hoping that was the case.

                However, this day, I didn’t learn much about golf.  I did learn a little about myself and how humans interact with one another in different contexts.  Let’s just say that everything didn’t go as planned.  First, after walking down to the range area, I noticed a group of kids running around and chattering.  That’s never a good sign.  An unknown grandpa, in his infinite wisdom, had decided that it was a good idea to bring the kids over to the driving range and teach them how to play golf.  Unfortunately, teaching wasn’t going to be a high priority this day.  The grandkids took up half of the driving range area running, yelling and attempting to be as obnoxious as they could be.  I must say that they were highly successful at achieving those specific goal sets.

                I walked over to the far side of the range, away from the kids, and started to tee up my first ball and begin my practice session.  Before I took my first shot, I heard what sounded like a lawn mower coming toward me.  I discovered that it was a John Deere tractor pulling a chemical dispersing device used to spread weed and feed on the grassy areas of the course and driving range.   The driver obviously wanted to spread his chemicals on the driving range but was temporarily foiled by grandpa, the grandkids and me.  So, he decided to park his vehicle twenty feet from where I was standing and I guessed that he was going to just sit there and watch us until we were finished and then complete his present mission.  Now, for me, it would have been better for him to treat another area at this time and then come back later to treat the driving range.  But, that’s just me.  He seemed determined to treat the range first, and if that meant that he would need to wait a half hour to start, so be it.

                I gave him the evil eye for a few minutes, which encouraged him to come over to where I was standing and clean out the sand dispensers while asking me if I was having a good day.  I told him that, so far, everything was going well.  So, I had to decide.  With all of this confusion and hubbub, was it really worth hitting balls today?  I decided that since I had paid four dollars and eighty cents to hit these balls, I should get to it.  I would just use these distractions as a test of my concentration expertise, which, in all honestly, was approaching zero as fast as the line defining the tail of a normalized bell curve measured at three sigma. 

                I had brought my seven iron and driver that particular day.  I usually use the seven iron to warm up with and then switch to my driver for serious practice.  So, I teed up my first ball and used my seven iron to hit it flush right down the middle of the range.  A beautiful shot it was.  I was proud of myself for even hitting the ball, given the distractions which were all around me.  So, with that success in hand, I decided to immediately switch to the driver.   I teed up the next ball off of my left instep, performed a few waggles, and let it go.  That particular day, I was concentrating on rotating my right hand over my left through impact.  So, that was where my mind was during the swing sequence.  Right over left, right over left…   Well, as I was bringing the club down towards the ball, I did move my right hand over my left, but I waited a millisecond too long.  The ball headed right, about thirty degrees away from my target.  I casually watched the flight of the ball as it headed toward the side of the range area.  As the ball approached the ground, I happened to spot a golfer directly in the ball’s path.  I guessed that this golfer had wandered into the driving range area after having sliced his own ball.  My ball was heading right at him.  At what seemed to be the right time, the golfer did a quick jump to the left and then to the right.  He didn’t look like he was trying to get out of the way of an incoming missile.  He looked more like he was having a spasm of some kind.  I thought to myself, “Oh no.  I just hit that goofus.” 

                I was far enough away from the guy that I wasn’t able to hear what he was saying as he started yelling in my direction.  I thought to myself that at least I had hit the ball far enough so that I couldn’t decipher the words clearly.  But, I could sure tell that he was angry.  He stood still for about a half of a minute while letting go with what I assumed to be the best profanities that he could muster at the time.  I decided to just stand motionless and stare back at him.  I guess that I should have yelled something inane like, “Sorry,” or some such platitude, but I didn’t feel any compulsion to do so.  My idea was that he had infiltrated into the demilitarized zone and had been inadvertently wounded by some wayward artillery.  Thems the breaks, I felt.

                After his tirade, he threw a ball down and hit his shot.  He hit it too high and it grazed a branch of a tree that was near his preferred flight path.  Then, he gave me one more menacing glance and headed towards his ball.

                I assured myself that I was neither worried nor concerned about the sequence of events which had just transpired.  I was, however, in the state of mind that obviated my ability to glean any helpful wisdom from that day’s practice session, no matter how many more balls I hit.  So, I casually pushed over the bucket of balls with my driver head and nonchalantly walked to my truck and headed home.  Some would call that experience a waste of time.  But, for me, it was an opportunity to observe how real people in real situations react to everyday happenstances and to ponder how much or how little they learned from that unique opportunity.  I know that I gained some wisdom and insight into the human psyche that day.  But, I also know that I didn’t gain any additional knowledge to help me improve my golf swing.

                Ah, maybe tomorrow.