The Golf Shot

The Golf Shot

There is something profound about a beginning student of most anything.. Never would this be so true about a beginner learning - of all things - a new sport. Ancient history proves the theory that mankind gathered clubs of various variety for hunting/gathering in tribal settings that brought home food around a ancient fireplace, complete with edibles and such.

Today, they still do these things. They gather round hills, hordes and throngs of them, steely-eyed, much like their forebears of Scotland.

They are a nomadic breed, capable of strange things, emitting periodic grunts, yells and blood curdling screams.They are golfers.

I know because I am training one. This is our three month anniversary of her debut - brandishing steel clubs of various shapes and dimensions.

Why I started her on this dilemma, I will never know.

But take a liking to this, she did, almost daily punishing the earthen boundaries of lawns across New England, swinging with great determination at a small white dimpled orb, one point six eighth of an inch across. Some of them even have dirty words stamped on them. Hers do not. She utters the dirty words herself.

There came a day - just yesterday - whereby she limbered her muscles carefully, swinging extra clubs like the proverbial "Casey At Bat", smiling away as it were. The unsuspecting golf ball, teed up upon a local sandlot, was confident that her Herculean swing would miss it ... completely.

" Am I learning fast enough for you?", came her question. Never tell a student a completely bald-faced lie.

" You are learning exponentially so", I tell her.

And then, she swung.

The ball rocketed up...UP into the sky, treetop level, soaring above the ballfield and headed straight for the library. I thought for sure it would clobber that stone building, the church steeple next, the Lions advertising billboard after ... and with a clatter... bong the bandstand in the square on its final destiny Earthward.

Actually, it landed beneath the manually operated scoreboard, just like the one they run at Fenway, resting underneath it alongside the almost-deserted ball field.

Sometimes, things go perfectly.

And the pride a student and teacher feel together is the essence of things to come ....