3 Reasons Why I Like Golf

By Charles Prokop
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

Copyright © Charles Prokop. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

AFTER MUCH HEAD SCRATCHING, NAVEL GAZING, and creative napping, I’ve come up with my reasons to like golf. These reasons apply solely to me. Any resemblance to the reasons of others is purely coincidental, although not necessarily impossible.

I mentally thumbed through my recollections of golf experiences, looking for the most pleasant memories. Three types of events stood out: rare perfectly struck shots; fun and companionship with golf buddies; and losing myself in the beauty of nature or the experience of the game. I’ll call those achievement experiences, social rewards, and spiritual immersion.

1. Achievement experiences.

Golf gives me something to work on. It’s something I know I can never master, but I can expect those rare flashes of brilliance. Golf will always challenge me, but it won’t be impossible for me improve. It’s a challenge that will last a lifetime, and I can keep at it for a very long time. Golf is a complex skill and I’ll need to change my game as I age and find new ways to play, but as long as I stay in reasonable physical shape I can participate. Few other sports, if any, offer the possibility of such a long playing career.

2. Social rewards.

Golf provides me with a structure for social interaction. I’m not very good at small talk; I need to have something going on. Golf gives me that thing to organize friendships around. The people I’ve played golf with throughout my life have been among my best friends, and now that I’m retired and don’t meet people at work, I meet new friends on the golf course.

3. Spiritual immersion.

I can lose myself in the game. Some of my moments of deepest peace, of meditative calm, have come in the midst of rounds of golf. Sometimes it’s becoming lost in the beauty of a fairway at sunset, feeling the grass and the air cooling as the sun goes down. Sometimes it’s standing on the first tee at dawn, hearing the birds awakening in the trees. At other times it’s becoming completely immersed in the rhythm of the round itself, thinking only about the next shot and seeing nothing but the ball and the target. It’s a legal altered state of consciousness with no negative side effects.

Golf seldom gives me all three of these things in one round. In fact, it’s hard to get the social interaction and the spiritual immersion simultaneously because one is outer directed and one is inner directed. But I can choose what I need and play alone or with friends, depending upon my goals.

And on those rare occasions where all three come together, where I’m playing well with good friends and that feeling of peace overcomes me, it’s heaven.

Charles Prokop is a clinical psychologist who writes about golf at fairwaywords.

(Photo credit: klavr, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

2012 Waste Management Phoenix Open TV Schedule and Tournament Notes

THE 2012 WASTE MANAGEMENT PHOENIX OPEN is underway at TPC Scottsdale in Scottsdale, Arizona. Webb Simpson is the early leader after firing a 65. Derek Lamely and Jarrod Lyle posted 66s. The first round is still in progress.

Purse: $6.1 million
Winner’s share: $1.098 million
Defending champion: Mark Wilson

Inside the field
Tee times
Inside the courses
Player interviews
Tournament overview
Tour report
Tournament news
Waste Management Phoenix Open website

2012 Waste Management Phoenix Open Leaderboard

TV SCHEDULE

TV coverage of the 2012 Waste Management Phoenix Open is on Golf Channel and CBS.

Thu, 2/2:
GOLF 4p - 7p ET

Fri, 2/3:
GOLF 4p - 7p ET

Sat, 2/4:
CBS 3p - 6p ET

Sun, 2/5:
CBS 3p - 6p ET

SIRIUS-XM broadcast times

(Image: Courtesy of PGATour.com)

Super Bowl Hype: Golf Digest’s Top 10 Gridiron Golfers

Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo studies more than film.

I GUESS I’VE SOLD OUT, a golf cog in the Super Bowl hype machine. In case you haven’t heard, it’s Super Bowl week. The New York Giants play the New England Patriots in Naptown on Sunday. I’m for the Giants. Something like 11 million pounds of potato chips will be consumed during the game. (I read that in Parade.)

Anyway, let’s get to the Golf Digest list, shall we? These are the top 10 NFLers (and four bonus players) with an affinity for the small ball. Three of them, by the way, are playing in The Big Game.

1. Tony Romo.
The Dallas Cowboys quarterback has been as low as a plus 3.3 handicap. That’s real good.

2. Peyton Manning.
The injured Colts QB is a 4.6 handicap. My cousin has played with him in fundraisers. Sometimes I kid him about getting us a game with Peyton.

3. Ben Roethlisberger.
Pittsburgh’s “Big Ben” is also a tough customer on the golf course. His handicap index has been as low as .4.

4. Aaron Rodgers.
The Green Bay Packers quarterback is a respectable single-digit-handicap golfer.

5. Tom Brady.
Has a “decent” golf game. I hope he loses on Sunday.

6. Drew Brees.
The New Orleans QB shot a 102 in the U.S. Open challenge at Pebble Beach.

7. Eli Manning.
A 7.1 handicapper, I hope the Giants quarterback is holding the Vince Lombardi Trophy on Sunday night.

8. Matthew Stafford.
Detroit Lions QB. Golf game unknown.

9. Sam Bradford.
St. Louis Rams player who is a scratch or better golfer.

10. Matt Schaub.
The Houston Texans quarterback is listed as a 7 handicap.

BONUS PLAYERS

Wes Welker. Much better pass catcher than golfer.

Mark Ingram. New Orleans Saints running back who once shot a 69. In the 8th grade. Boom!

Jay Cutler. A 12 handicap. Let’s move on.

Tim Tebow. Please. Have you seen this guy’s swing? Holy … nevermind.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Photo credit: Keith Allison, Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Golf Voices from the Past: Dave Hill on Caddies

PGA TOUR PLAYER DAVE HILL, who died last September, penned his book TEED OFF with the help of Golf Digest editor Nick Seitz in the late 1970s. Hill was a talented and controversial pro who often led the PGA Tour in two categories: fines and suspensions. Following are some of Hill’s thoughts on caddies, including a funny anecdote concerning Orville Moody’s bag man.

Good caddies are more important than jockeys on horses. Also they can adjust from one player to another. Most of the others can’t. They either don’t give you anything but the yardages or else they want to play the game for you. I’d say there are a half dozen real good caddies on the tour. The rest are just bag-toters. The good ones aren’t with the best players in most cases. I don’t think Jack Nicklaus asks much of his caddie....

Golfball is a good caddie and so are Frog and Del. You don’t deal in last names with the caddies, just first names, and they have some beauties. There’s also Turk and Rabbit and Bit Fat Mitch and Ol’ Roy, and they’re every bit as colorful as their names....

The all-time character, though, was a caddie who worked off and on for Orville Moody. He was in the Army with Orville. He had boxes full of cards with yardages that he kept tucked away in safe deposit boxes in a bank. He would practice his pacing stride on a football field by the hour. When he went into a shoe store he wouldn’t buy a new pair of shoes until he was convinced he could pace off an exact yard in them. One time during the Crosby tournament he had a dream that he had a bad yardage on a hole, so he got up at 2 a.m., and drove to the course, and repaced the hole with a flashlight. Another time he informed Orville, dead serious, that a course was 133 feet longer than it had been the year before. Then there was the time at Indian Wells in Palm Springs that he walked through a water hazard up to his neck to get his yardage on a straight line from tee to green.

He was unbelievable. You had to say he was dedicated to his job.

Hill won 13 times on the PGA Tour but no majors and played on three U.S. Ryder Cup teams. After turning 50, Hill collected six more titles on the Champions Tour. His brother, Mike, also had a long pro career, winning on both tours.

−The Armchair Golfer

More Voices:
Frank Beard

Bad Headline Entry: Abu Dhabi Do! Rock Doesn’t Turn Into Rubble

Robert Rock

I DECLARE MYSELF THE WINNER of the unofficial Robert Rock bad headline contest. Go ahead, try to find a worse headline. I had many others ready to go. Then I saw them all over the stupid Web. It almost ruined my fun.

Rock, of course, won the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship by a stroke on Sunday by shooting a 2-under 70. Tiger Woods, who shared the 54-hole lead with the journeyman from Staffordshire, England, could manage no better than an even-par 72. I know Tiger put a nice spin on this missed opportunity, but it has to be disappointing.

As Alistair Tait wrote for Golfweek, “Tiger was a child prodigy. Rock was a child nobody.”

Not to take anything away from Rock, but he was ranked 100 and change in the world and openly admitted he might soil himself because of the pairing. He hardly slept and grew a beard over night. (OK, he already had the beard.) Still, Tiger losing to a Rock would not—could not—have happened a few years ago, right?

Tiger made two early birdies and momentarily looked like The Man we all remember. But Rock didn’t crumble. (Sorry.) He made two birdies of his own. Then Tiger carded back-to-back bogeys at holes 4 and 5, and that was pretty much it. Balls were flying into the rough and missing the greens. It was a grind all the way to the clubhouse.

I saw some of the Rock-Tiger duel live in the wee hours of Sunday morning. It wasn’t planned. There were five teenage girls at the house for a sleepover. (Isn’t it funny how they call it a sleepover? They should simply call it an “over.” Sleep—that’s a joke.) I awoke at 2 a.m. When I realized I wasn’t going to immediately get back to sleep, I turned on the Golf Channel. I watched the first six holes of the final round and turned back in at 4:30 a.m.

Tiger’s performance does represent progress. It’s a process, as he likes to say. His swing and his game are definitely improving. But they weren’t as solid as a Rock when it counted on Sunday, red and black day. For me, that was a bit surprising. And for Tiger, perhaps a bit troubling.

−The Armchair Golfer