There's a lot to be said for the glory that comes with an epic drive off the first tee. Strength, precision, and grace all combine into one long sweeping motion of the club. The arms slowly rise, the torso slowly turns, and the clubface slowly rotates as the golfer reaches the apex of his swing. Then, at the very instant of maximum potential energy, an explosion occurs.
I can see my grandpa on the first tee right now. "Grip it and rip it, son," he would say after his first drive. Indeed, grandpa.
My grandpa knew the importance of the drive, particularly the first drive. It is the first drive that sets the tone for the rest of the afternoon. A good first drive lets the course know that you plan on dominating it, not just playing it.
Driving is a skill that comes most naturally to most golfers. The clubface itself is massive and forgiving by design. It allows the wielder to swing with maximum power and sacrifice little in the way of accuracy. Most golfers take great pleasure in the drive because, after all, it feels real real good to fully unwind and uncork on a tiny ball whose sole purpose is to go real real far.
Driving is the egregious display of power. It is the corporate CEO in the brand new BMW M5. It is the star athlete in his five million dollar yacht. It is the movie producer vacationing in Paris.
These are just symbols - superfluous displays of potency.
The golf match itself isn't won on the first tee. The drive will never win a skins game. While the ability to hit the ball a long ways is certainly helpful, it is not necessary to win. Only the Closers win golf tournaments. In order to close effectively on the golf course, one must be able to make the pressure putt. Case in point: John Daly used to win tournaments because of his putting. Now John Daly loses tournaments because of his putting.
Ironically, coincidentally, or something in between, the shortest shot in golf is the hardest to master. To become a proficient putter one must put time in at the putting green. It takes a great deal of dedication and precision to bury even 80% of those tricky little four-footers. Let's face it; even those two-foot, right-to-left downhill breakers are more difficult when four skins and four beers ride on the successful draination of the ball. And yes, I'm trying to bring the word draination into the modern American lexicon and fulfill my dream of inventing a word that appears in the slang dictionary.
America is a country of Closers. Remember, "Show me the money"? Remember, "Where's the beef?" Americans want to see results. Somewhere in France at the time you are reading this article, French students are protesting the proposed reforms of the guaranteed two-year job retention program. I can't think of anything more anti-American than guaranteeing, say a car sales job to an individual that can't close the customer.
Luckily, this country was built upon two fundamental tenants: hard work and willingness to improve. Great putts in the odds of great pressure are timeless and will be referenced throughout the course of history. One can only speculate on how many thousands of hours of practice it took Jack Nicklaus to be able to make that 40-foot birdie on the 16th hole of the 1975 Masters. Now that dude was a closer. He could probably sell a mean car too.
The above work is the opinion of the author,
and not necessarily that of the Prometheus Institute.
