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Even Hall of Famers lose confidence Posted: Monday July 08, 2002 12:53 PM
Sports Illustrated senior writer John Garrity was a 42-year-old 8-handicapper when he suddenly lost his swing. Since December 1989 he has been looking for it -- a modern-day Odysseus adrift on the troubled waters of swing theory. As Garrity travels the world reporting on golf, he visits as many driving ranges as he can, avoiding the dreaded "mats only" ranges that prevent him from teeing it up. Tuesday, July 2 HUTCHINSON, Kan. -- I pulled into Hutch this afternoon with a car trunk full of golf clubs, loose shoes, sweat-stained golf caps, yard bags, paperback mysteries and brown leaves. It's not often that I can drive to a major championship from my home in Kansas City. George Brett, the Hall of Fame third baseman, got to Prairie Dunes Country Club before I did. I didn't get a chance to check his trunk, but I bet it looked like mine. Brett has been a golf nut since his early years with the Royals, and he was here today to give a junior golf clinic at the U.S. Women's Open. He also gave a press conference, and when someone asked him what his handicap was, he said, "Right now, probably about a 15." He was exaggerating. Brett has been a single-digit handicapper for years and once paired with Fred Couples to win the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. But something had obviously shaken Brett's confidence in his game. "I've got the yips and chili dips," he said. "My last two rounds in Florida this year, I shot 75-76, and I was real happy. And then I made the drastic mistake so many amateurs make: I started telling people I'd figured out how to play the game of golf. And the golf gods heard me and punished me, because my game has gone south." His voice didn't catch on those last five words, but he did have that dazed, hopeless look in his eyes. My look. "And you know," he went on, "I dreamed of becoming a scratch player. I probably will still continue to work to be a scratch player. Will I ever get there? I don't know." Then Brett said something that gave me chills. He said, "I don't know if I'm strong enough mentally to be a scratch player." Not strong enough mentally? As a baseball player, George Brett got everything out of his abilities. He was a student of hitting, a master of pitchers' tactics, an infallible practitioner when it came to the nuances of field positioning, baserunning and overall strategy. Brett was also a disciplined player, a hard worker and a paragon of commitment and hustle. If he thought golf was too hard to tackle, what hope did the rest of us have? "Golf is the most difficult sport for me," Brett explained. "In baseball, you react. Goose Gossage will throw a baseball at you at 98 to 100 miles an hour. You see it coming, and you react. In golf, you put the tee down, and now you have to react to something standing still. And you get these thoughts going through your mind. I get those negative thoughts going through my mind all the time." I had planned to find a driving range and hit some balls after dinner. After listening to Brett, I decided not to. Wednesday, July 3 HUTCHINSON, Kan. -- George Brett obviously knows what he's talking about. I went out this afternoon and found a sweet little practice range at the Carey Park Golf Course in South Hutch. (That's South, as in "the place your game goes.") The range was nothing fancy, but it was wide and long and covered with good, green grass. The course looked inviting, too -- simple and flat, but tree-lined and nicely groomed from tee to green. Unfortunately, the practice tee faced southwest into a two-club wind. As often happens when I practice into the wind, I started out hitting the ball solidly and slowly worked my way through mediocrity to ineptitude. Disgusted by the sweeping hooks I was hitting with my 5-wood and 3-wood, I climbed into the practice bunker and tried to hit 8-irons to a target about 130 yards away. But I couldn't pick the ball cleanly. (Rob Stanger says I should think "first and second groove" when I hit from a fairway bunker. I tried, but I kept hitting the sand with grooves seven and eight, causing the ball to fly like a knuckleball for about 80 yards before landing. And most of the sand blew back in my face.) I walked back up the tee line and pulled my gap wedge, which is probably the most dependable club in my bag. My first three swings, which I was careful not to overcook into the wind, produced three different results: a fat shot that flew only 70 yards; a perfect shot that covered the target sign and stopped within a foot of where it landed; and a high, lazy fade that would have landed in the fifth row of seats beyond the dugout if I had hit it at Kauffman Stadium. Negative thoughts started going through my mind. Friday, July 5 HUTCHINSON, KAN. -- Brett has got this game so screwed up that nobody can play it. Karrie Webb, winner of the last two U.S. Women's Opens, stumbled around in 79 yesterday afternoon. This morning she shot a 3-over-par 73, and afterward she tried to figure out what to do with her weekend. (Visit the local grain elevators? Make a sightseeing trip to Lacrosse, Kan., "Barbed Wire Capital of the World"? Get her hair done at the local clip 'n' curl?) Webb couldn't believe the suddenness with which disaster had struck. "My swing practically disappeared overnight," she said. "It just vanished yesterday on the 11th tee." The 11th hole was actually Webb's second hole because she started Thursday's first round on the 10th, an intimidating par-3 with a forced carry over the biggest grass-and-briar patch in Kansas. She missed a 3-foot putt for par there, followed that with a bogey on 11, wound up making a 6 on the par-3 fourth when her explosion shot from the front bunker went over the green into a lie that had earlier swallowed two paleontologists and a backhoe ... But you get the picture. My game isn't looking so hot, either. Last night, when the last leaders had finished their rounds, I hurried back over to Carey Park, paid the $12 greens fee and played the back nine. I hooked my tee shot on 10 over a giant cottonwood tree into waist-high grass. I toe-hooked an 8-iron on the par-3 11th and made bogey. I went for the green on a 319-yard par-4 (I was hitting downwind), pushed it right, bounced it off a cart path and wound up at the back of the practice range ... But you get the picture. Ted Williams, who died today, used to say that baseball was the hardest game. "They give you a round bat and a round ball," he said, "and the object of the game is to hit it square. It doesn't make sense." Maybe not, but Brett and I agree that baseball is a piece of cake compared to this game. I'm taking the weekend off. Watch this space for another installment of Mats Only. To send John Garrity advice, share your experiences, or suggest a driving range, click here.
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