Practice

April 4

I am thankful for practice. It is only through practice that we get better. And practice can be fun and not just drudgery and routine.

This photo is obviusly taken at the golf range, specifically at the Oaks of Sherwood Golf Course (previously called Sherwood Forest Country Club). It is the golf course I grew up playing with my father. Practice back then used to be so much more difficult because we had to provide and pick up our own golf balls. Nowadays, you just pay money and get a bucket of balls and they pick them up for you. It was free back then and gave you exercise but was much more dangerous as you attempted to dodge the balls being hit at you while you picked yours up. I have occasionally ventured back to the old days by going to a local school playground or football field (when there are no kids around) and hit there and then pick up the golf balls.

I really enjoy practicing golf by hitting golf balls at the range. When it becomes mundane, I like to imagine playing holes - I'll pretend I'm playing each hole in sequence, start with the club I would hit on that hole, hit the ball, see where it went and then go on to pretend I'm hitting hit my second shot based on the result of the first shot, until I finish a few "holes". Of course, I always do much better in these semi-imaginary rounds than I do on the course. I used to even practice my chipping game at home by playing nine or eighteen holes with the trees serving as targets for my chips. The trick is to hit the golf balls just hard enough to barely graze the tree but not so hard as to have the ball ricochet off the tree and hit you in the head! The fewer self inflicted wounds you have, the better you have done.

practice makes perfect

practice makes perfect

a wise man once said

sure it makes one better

but what was going through his head

perfect is not a word

that’s  in my limited vocabulary

i practice and practice and practice

and may be better by next january

but perfect?

naw not me it seems

i’ll be perfect one day

in my nightly dreams.

© rt tulley