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Searching for the solution Posted: Friday April 25, 2003 3:00 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. Wednesday, April 23 SAVANNAH, Ga. -- I flew here to write a piece on the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, but the shade of the moss-draped oaks is beguiling and I may sit on a wooden bench instead and read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. If time allows, I'll take the cemetery tour. But first I have to exorcise a few demons that have crept into my golf swing. Yesterday evening I drove south on Highway 17 to the irresistibly named Tin Cup Driving Range, a quaint operation run from a cottage and patrolled by a handsome, long-haired house cat. There were three green mats (for beginners and sissies). The rest of the stations were quasi-grass on a shifting subsurface of sand. Most of that sand eventually wound up in my face, thanks to a stiff wind out of the west. The balls had fat red stripes painted by some aftermarket Picasso. Some of that paint transferred immediately to the faces of my new irons. As is usually the case when I hit range rocks into a headwind, my ballstriking deteriorated rapidly. I gave up and carried the remaining balls to Tin Cup's short-game area -- a tiny, bumpy, two-level green bordered with clumpy watergrass. I hit chip shots for 20 minutes, fascinated by the unpredictable way each ball hopped upon landing and then veered in random directions on its way to the hole. I stayed until sundown, hoping Rene Russo would show up. Thursday, April 24 SAVANNAH, Ga. -- I set my standards a little higher yesterday afternoon. On the good advice of some tournament volunteers, I drove back up I-95 to the Crosswinds Golf Club, an agreeable-looking daily-fee course near the Savannah airport. The range at Crosswinds is a no-frills facility, but I mean that in the nicest sense -- simple flag targets, plenty of room, and closely mowed turfgrass on a level, well-maintained tee ground. Ten dollars got me two red drawstring bags of range balls, most of them dental-white and well-scrubbed. "There's about 50 balls in a bag," the young man in the golf shop told me, so by my estimation I hit 99 absolutely wretched shots before I figured out what I was doing wrong. Regular readers of this column are familiar with my meltdowns, so I won't go into the details, other than to say that I started out by blading eight consecutive wedges low and left of my target. Recognizing a pattern, I took a deep breath and started down my checklist of proven swing defects, mentally crossing off the usual suspects -- misalignment, faulty grip, bad posture, overconfidence, underconfidence, vitamin deficiency, distraction by field mice -- and wound up discovering the culprit on my very last swing. I'm not going to say what the problem was. I've written about it before. I've even carried around an inexpensive piece of common hardware to practice with. All I'll say is, that last shot, No. 100, was a perfectly struck draw with an 8-iron that flew 154 yards to the target and left a level, rectangular divot at my feet. Today, after work, I drove back out to Crosswinds. I sat in my rental car for 10 minutes to wait out a sun shower, but as soon as it stopped I bought a bag of balls and hit the range. With no warmup, I opened with 10 straight well-hit wedges to assorted targets. I then moved on to my 8-iron, which I hit equally well. I switched to my 3-wood, which I wielded with the confidence of a Hooters tour irregular. I finished up with a couple of deft wedges that practically knocked down the flagstick. What swing flaw had I corrected? Be the first to e-mail me the correct answer, and I will send you a free copy of Golf's Greatest Eighteen, a fascinating new book about the modern game's best players, edited by David Mackintosh and published by McGraw-Hill -- which, coincidentally, contains a chapter on Tom Watson written by yours truly. Relatives, employees of Time Inc. and tenants of the Mats Only Building are ineligible. 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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