Driving Myself Crazy Misadventures of a Novice Golfer

Read the Ball "What on earth are you thinking about?" The sexy southern underbuzz of David Taylor's voice cut slowly through Alabama's insect opera. I was afraid to tell him. What I was thinking about had nothing to do with the golf drill he had just set up for me. But it was related to the neat line of golf balls waiting patiently in the grass just north of my right foot. In a connect-the-dots sort of way, they had led my mind to a stunning discovery: The theme song ofLawrence of Arabiawhen hummed double time becomes the theme song ofOzzie and Harriet.In that irrefutable truth, I was now sure, lay the key to understanding Western Civilization, and the shock of this discovery had kept me hovering over golf ball number one for several minutes. "The point is not to think," Taylor coached. "Just hit the ball." I had never hit a real golf ball before, so it was hard not to be nervous. And when I'm nervous I hum. The calming notes ofLawrence of Arabiasurfaced first. Then the golf ball started to swell like an inflating airbag coming at'cha, and extreme nervousness pushed the foreboding notes ofLawrence of Arabiainto the peppier, safer upper atmosphere ofOzzie and Harriet. Hence my discovery. Taylor wasn't impressed. As director of marketing for Birmingham's SunBelt Golf Corporation, he had dealt with beginners and their excuses many times. In fact, his company actually built the rookie-friendly Robert Trent Jones Trail upon which we were standing. The Trail, as it's called, is an 18-course, 324-hole, 100-mile Alabama golf mecca considered by many to be the world's finest public golf offering. A 1990 survey showed that it had become the number one tourist draw in the state. Quite an accomplishment, since a 1980s survey had revealed that the only time people used to visit Alabama was when they had to drive through it to get somewhere else. The Trail is why we were there. Or, why Taylor was there. I was there to go bass fishing. A certain golf magazine editor had dangled it in front of me as bait to get me to cave in on the golf part of an Alabama golf-and-bass-fishing story she wanted. I knew I could do the fishing part; the editor said I could just "walk the courses with the pros" for the golf part. So there I was, a mere twenty minutes from downtown Birmingham, standing on the driving range of the Robert Trent Jones Trail's first course, Oxmoor Valley, where SunBelt Golfand David Taylorare headquartered. By rights, I had no right to be there at all. The only eighteen-hole golf I'd ever played was miniature golf at Camp Putt with my ten-year-old nephew, who had made s'mores out of my score despite my hole-in-one on "Beaver Dam" (the secret is to putt between the two chewed-up "trees"). What Taylor had in mind was real grown-up golf with full-sized golf clubs and serious distances. Surely he knew the harrowing intimidation a tiny, waiting white ball inspires in all rank beginners. It seems so small, so far away. This inaccessibility tends to hyperfocus our attention on it, and soon the Airbag Phenomenon occurs: The golf ball grows to unmanageable proportions. As we watch in terror, our gaze takes on a laserlike intensity under which the ball's pale skin begins to crumple and smoke. Eventually its molecules compact until its mass finally collapses upon itself like a miniature black hole. So, by the time a beginner actually swings, the ball has pretty much become the hole, which explains why rookie golfers invariably miss the ball on their first swing. Would that my problem were so simple. Taylor was right about the thinking-too-much part. I was stuck in intellectual overdrive. It was clear that I wouldn't get over the shock of theLawrence of ArabiaOzzie and Harrietrevelation anytime soon. But maybe I coMaxwell, Jessica is the author of 'Driving Myself Crazy Misadventures of a Novice Golfer' with ISBN 9780553379907 and ISBN 0553379909.