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002038 Visit since
| Learning
the game - Part 4 | by Peter Gray
October
21, 2002. |  Games
are won or lost around the green. Because this is where the god of golf lies in
wait to play his most diabolical tricks. This is where my rare and precious, well-played
second shot will swerve inexplicably into a horrendously deep bunker at the last
second. This is where my ball will disappear into thick grass after bouncing off
a well-concealed sprinkler-head. This is, in a nutshell, where strong men break
down and swear they will take up knitting before they ever set foot on a golf-course
again. Ground-zero on a golf-course can be thought
of as a circle with a radius of fifty yards from the hole. I concede that good
golfers think of it in much smaller terms. For example, I have had the experience,
while shaping up to land a ball on the green, of having a golf-partner say: "
The pin is very far back today. You need to play just to the right of the hole
and finish on the down-slope behind it." Talk about nit-picking! He should
be eternally grateful if my ball lands anywhere that makes the use of a putter
at least theoretically feasible from there on.
There are two ways of hitting the ball from the edge of ground zero. The preferred
way is to hit it so high in the air that the ball comes down vertically and hopefully
stays put once it lands. To do this requires the use of those irons with high
numbers or another club altogether, called the "wedge." (Why it is called
a "wedge" is beyond me. "Scoop" or even "Shovel"
would be more appropriate.) Either way, these clubs have in common the fact that
they are designed to be used by hitting behind and below the ball, taking a bite
out of the grass after the club has sent the ball on its way. And that is something
my brain rejects utterly. Having been painfully taught to send signals to my arms
to hit the ball cleanly, this counter-intuitive instruction to deliberately miss
the damn thing causes severe nervous damage. This trauma is most acute in the
case of bunker-shots. " Flatten your club and hit the sand three inches behind
the ball," I will be told. Flattening the club means I am supposed to make
a shot with a club-face as thin as a communion wafer - but no matter. What inevitably
happens is that I hit the ball as clean as can be - and watch it ricochet back
from the inside of the bunker to land at my feet again like an over-eager puppy.
The second way to play this fifty-yard shot is to run the ball on to the green
with very little loft. While my partners shudder at this, I frequently prefer
to try and play this shot. Of course, if there is a bunker in the way, it does
mean I have to take a dog-leg, two-shot approach to the hole. But at least I won't
squirt the ball in a totally unpredictable direction, as is my wont with a nine
iron. The big draw-back to the low shot, admittedly, is the ever-present danger
that the ball will scoot clear across the green and end up almost as far from
the hole as it was before. When cautioned against playing in this fashion, I have
learned to counter such advice by declaring, " I am from England. I am used
to playing links-style golf!" I am not sure what this means, but it seems
to put a stop to any further discussion.  Once
your ball is on the putting surface, it would seem to be a simple matter to pop
it in the hole. In fact, the calculation that determines the target score for
each hole, actually allows you not one but two shots to do this. That sounds more
than generous. And it would be if course-designers were not all sadistic in nature.
To the casual eye, golf course greens look smooth and flat. Green-keepers lavish
untold effort on keeping them looking like that. They go about their work until
they have created greens that appear to rival pool-tables. This is all a monstrous
deception of the cruelest kind. Searching for the one and only correct line to
the hole is as mind-stretching as attempting to solve the riddle of the sphinx.
You may have watched the top golfers in the world consulting nervously with their
caddies, crouching on all fours to get a worm's eye view, standing erect with
their putter held before them like a plumb-bob, finally getting settled to make
their stroke…..and then missing a three foot put. Have you noticed the disbelieving
look on their faces as the ball sails smartly past the cup? In that instant they
know that thousands of hours practicing on the putting green are not worth a hill
of beans when malign forces are at work. The best proof of this is that if, after
missing the put, one puts another ball down in exactly the same place and makes
exactly the same stroke - the ball will practically leap into the cup.
Nevertheless, we golfers do our best. We survey the imperceptible undulations
that will affect the ball on its way to the hole. We examine minute blades of
grass to see whether they are pointing towards or away from the ball. We mutter
ancient beliefs like: "Balls always run in the direction of water."
We brush away invisible specks of dirt between our ball and the hole - mostly
to put off for as long as possible the moment when we will have no option left
but to hit the ball. Finally, we consider what lies beyond the cup. If the green
slopes away at an impossible angle, we will plan on coaxing the ball to crawl
to the lip of the hole and fall in on its last gasp. If one taps the ball just
a little too hard, an experiment worthy of Galileo will unfold before our very
eyes. The ball will demonstrate that speed of acceleration is in inverse proportion
to the likelihood of making par.  Perhaps
nothing in golf is more frustrating than seeing your ball stop on the very edge
of the hole but refuse to fall in. The rules of golf allow you to wait ten seconds
for the ball to decide whether to fall in or not.(Trust me - It never does!) It
seems totally unreasonable to me, to count the minute tap needed to push the ball
over the edge and into the hole as a full stroke. I have written several times
to the U.S.G.A, recommending a move to the decimal point system. If this were
done, I would be able to score a 4.1 under such circumstances instead of being
unrealistically penalized with a bogey five. They must still be considering the
merits of this, because I have not yet heard back from them.
Before leaving the subject of putting, I should offer a word of advice about what
to do if your ball lands on the little fringe of grass that encircles the putting
surface. There are as many ways of dealing with this as there are clubs in your
bag. None of them provide a guarantee of success. You can try to swipe through
the grass with your putter. Probably the grass will act like an emergency brake
and slow your ball to a stop two feet onto the green. You can try to loft the
ball so that it hops into the air before settling down to roll into the cup. The
possibility here is that you will cause your ball to drop on your playing partner's
head. Tiger Woods has recently made the use of a fairway wood an imaginative option
for playing this shot. But the only time I approached my ball with a number three
wood in my hand, my companions quickly picked up their balls and declared the
hole over. Finally, let me explain the friendly custom
called the "Gim'me." If your ball lies closer to the hole than the distance
between the face of your putter and the bottom edge of the grip on your club,
you can ask for a "Gim'me." Which means: " For God's sake, please
do not make me hit this shot!" Your fellow-players will generally grant this
exemption - unless of course you are playing for money, in which case they will
laugh in your face. Archives
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