Resolutions for the New Year





Every year, there are things I promise I will do differently in my approach to the new golf season. Every year, I start off keeping these promises until…I don’t. Well, this year is going to be different. I promise.



Here are a few of them. Perhaps they can help you as well.



­­­1- Keep the workouts going all summer.

I start working out in the winter. Then, just as April arrives, I kick it up a notch. The annual sensation of increased strength and stamina, along with a righteous sense of well being kind a gets me thinking that I could whip the entire Taliban one handed. I usually end up feeling that the physical requirements for good golf should be no more than a canvas-bound tomato can in comparison.

Then, the weather breaks and practicing starts and tee times are made--and homes, families and jobs do not necessarily disappear—but time does. The workouts have been the first to go for me. First I rationalize that walking 18 holes is a “workout.” Then by early summer, hitting balls after work and an evening stroll through the subdivision is my “workout.” Finally, when the dog days arrive, simply parking at the far end of the parking lot at my sons little league games, and then afterward, carrying out some Papa Murphy’s pizzas becomes my “workout.” (I do, however, carry the pizzas with one hand…to feel the burn.)


What I will do this year is get up at 5:05 a.m. instead of 5:55 and get my “workout” in. What’s 50 minutes? It’s not like the alarm goes off and I do a forward somersault with a twist from my bed at 5:55 anyway.


Therefore, I shall keep the workouts going through the summer tournament season by getting up earlier. Tiger, Vijay and most the tour boys all do. So should I.


2- Watch what I put in my mouth.


Yes, I know, we all do. We watch it go from our hands into our pie holes. But there comes a time when Culvers just can’t mend a broken heart anymore. So often the cheeseburger is placed upon the altar at the center of many a player’s post round ritual, at least for most denominations. Be they The Victorious or The Demoralized, the burger becomes the “Body of Christalmightythatsgood.” But it doesn’t do ones body any good--especially if your workouts become reduced to a walk across the parking lot.


As I’ve noted in a past column, what one puts in their mouth can affect ones golf game. It was the dried mangos of course, that had sadly become my personal savior, thereby reducing the importance of any one shot. Just remember this; it’s always bad when comfort food becomes too good at what it does.


One other thing I must mention. Last year, I accidentally took my wife’s morning vitamin, “Woman’s Way”, instead of the guy brand I had been taking. Don’t remember the brand name, but they were for “Lions and Tigers and Bears….with Omega 3.” Anyway, when I played that day, I wasn’t myself. I wanted to stoop to tee the ball up instead of bending over. I fumed over the conditions of the courses restrooms, and the fact that there were no lemon slices in the on-course water coolers. One time I came to a funky lie in the short rough and thought “that’s just dandy…I need my lucky nine wood.” Finally, when the cute little cart girl came by to sell me some bottled water, (still no lemon wedges,) before I knew it, I blurted in jest “You’re so skinny, I hate you...ooh, I’m sorry, where did you get that bracelet.”


I won’t make that mistake again.


3- Play more than I practice.


At some point every summer, I find myself practicing on the range, trying to find a way to play better. Instead of playing better, I just get better at the act of practicing. Sometimes I’ll get in a groove and my practice session will become like a trick shot exhibition. It’s like I’m Hainer the Harlem Globetrotter. Then I get on the course and I’m still Hainer, the klutzy white Washington General.


Therefore, I resolve to play more holes and add some consequences to every swing. I must understand that every shot is different. I’ll dedicate more of my practice time towards the short game. One still has to work on their swing, but the sessions on the range will be shorter. Sessions lasting longer than four hours, though rare, will require immediate attention from a doctor, probably a shrink. (Come to think of it, shouldn’t the folks at Cialis recommend a “shrink,” of sorts, for those rare, longer than four hour occasions?)



4-Go back to Art over Science


The more I have attempted to learn about the golf swing, the more trouble I have found myself in. My brain just doesn’t easily wrap itself around angles and sequences. I’ve tried, and failed. I have actually succeeded in being able to intellectually present the concepts and theories of the various schools of thought on the golf swing; I simply have no real facility for the practical application of these ideas.


I taught myself to golf by imitating other golfers. First, it was a senior golfer on the high school golf team. I was a sophomore and had been playing for a year when I decided to try out for the team, basically because I had recalled the scores the guys on the team were shooting the year before. (High forties for nine.) We had winter practice in the gym, hitting into a net. Using my $29.99 set of department store clubs (putter included,) I imitated Jeff Long, the team stud-- and made varsity for the first match without playing a hole of competitive golf in my life. All I did was imitate J –Lo’s swing and it worked.


Since then, I’ve done the same with various friends and Tour pros. It always works the best for me, if I can just see their image in my mind. Most of my tournament wins and better rounds have been while I’ve imitated someone else. Everyone from Isao Aioki to Hubert Green. From Fred Couples to Paul Azinger to Ernie Els, to Halla, Welton and Gregorski and on and on. Seriously. Though sometimes it is the player’s rhythm and tempo that prompts the imitation more than their specific action.



If it is true that art imitates life, then art must be the way I go. It has been the way that has worked best. Someone once said that “cheesy art provides answers, and true art poses questions.” If my swing makes you say “What?” then I’m on my way. All that matters is how many shots one takes per round. Not much else.


I’ve wasted years on analysis and “getting into positions,” always thinking that doing everything the same way every time is the next step one must take to (relative) greatness. This may be the case for a chess-playing, ELO adoring, precisionist math junkie dentist like The Driller. But for The Hainer, it would be like the String Cheese Incident trying to play their music in the vein of Steely Dan.


And so…string cheese it is. As each slender thread and artful ribbon of cheese is pulled from it fixed axis, it is different in some way from the next; and meaningful in that it can never be, exactly, replicated again--much in the way every shot in any round of golf is unique--despite the uniformity of the tubular Motherstick from which it came.


My resolutions then, suggest some past failings, and one man’s need to address the important issues of health and art and play as they relate to the upcoming golf season—at least from a late February point of view.


It seems evident however, that the interactive art and unpretentious imagery of your better String Cheeses just may be the key to a successful 2005. Yeah, String Cheese, the nutritious, individually wrapped and always fun little treat has done nothing more than perform day in and day out for many years, humbly avoiding the limelight, yet teaching, always teaching. Until I got it.


“Now we go.”