or as far back as I can
remember, I’ve hit the
ball like a 10-handicap.
I’ve been better and I’ve been
worse, but that’s about who
I am. My only distinguishing
characteristic is that I hit it low.
Our late columnist Charley
Price once told me,“If you hit
it any lower, you’d be playing
underground.” Good gosh, I
want to be better.
My handicap has bounced
around in high single figures,
but there was one sublime
season in the mid-1980s –
pre-marriage, pre-kids, pre-
Internet – when I played the
best golf of my life.
The sweet spot wasn’t just
serendipitous. It was the result
of a carefully executed plan
consisting of two unbroken
rituals.
First, I hit practice balls every
day after work, but never a shot
more than 100 metres. My daily
regimen was restricted to the
short game; the only full shots
were with 52- and 56-degree26 / JANUARY 2018 / GOLFDIGEST.CO.ZAF
THEBESTGOLFOFYOURLIFE
old school
Angelo Argea and Jack Nicklaus
at Carnoustie in 1975.Callaway Hickory Stick wedges.
Like every golfer in those days,
I had a cylindrical, red-canvas
shag bag emitting a distinctive
click-plop when I hovered over
and pressed down on a ball,
sending it up the protruding
shaft into the bag.
Pros had leather satchels much
more stylish than amateurs’
click-plop contraptions. Angelo
Argea, Jack Nicklaus’ caddie, had
a green one signifying his man’s
MacGregor contract. Caddies
would stand in the practice field
at tournaments and shag balls hit
by their pros, progressing from
wedge to driver. (Imagine today
a practice line of golfers hitting
balls into a field of caddies, and
you couldn’t count the lawsuits
quick enough.) At the end of
Jack’s practice sessions, he’d be
hitting these 1-irons like mortar
shells, then he’d pause and wave
Angie back another 30 metres,
no, a little further back, Angie,
40 metres. Jack would take out
his persimmon driver and fly it
two stories over Argea’s Brillo-Pad head. The crowd went
wild.
The other pro I liked to
watch was Tom Kite, who
might not have had a 1-iron
but was the first to carry three
wedges. His longtime caddie,
Mike Carrick, had a red-and-
white leather satchel (Wilson
Sporting Goods’ colours), and
he’d pace off from Kite’s
practice spot and shout back
the yardage each wedge carried:
“ 6 2... 6 4... 6 1... 6 2 .”
It was the feedback Kite
needed to connect subliminally
each wedge’s feel with distance,
and boy, did it make an impres-
sion on me. That was the
inspiration for my relentless
wedge practice, two hours,
every day, beside the humon-
gous practice green at Winged
Foot in New York.
The second ritual of my
sublime season was a playing
tactic on the course: I never
went for the green when I had
more than a 4-iron distance. I’d
lay it up and then try to hit oneof those calibrated Kite wedges. This
applied to Winged Foot’s four par 5s
that were reachable for me as well as
a lot of long par 4s.
Keep in mind: The hybrid had
not yet been invented, so anything
more than, say, 175 metres would
require a high-risk long iron or fair-
way wood that brought Tillinghast’s
treacherous bunkers and three-putt
greens into play. My handicap
started the season at about a 5 and
ended at a 1 – as in one, oh-en-ee –
a stroke from scratch. It was the only
time before or since that it ever got
nearly so low. I shot a 72 at Augusta
National from the members’ tees,
birdieing all four of the par 5s with-
out going for any of them in two.
Looking back, I realise how sta-
tistically naive I was back then. My
grand experiment was based on a
hunch, no real numbers. And maybe
that’s why it disappeared into the
mist of passing seasons, when I never
again had such a grasp on scoring.
It came and went, and generally I’ve
retained a pretty good wedge game
since, but the 72s became 77s and
then 82s and scarily higher now.
This month’s Big Data Issue
reminded me of that one magical
season with the possibilities that are
now unlocked by understanding the
real facts of scoring better.
The lead piece by Mike Stachura
shows how new technology allows
us to track results and refine our
tactical decisions on the course
(page 48). Based on a new study
analysing the swings of 30 000
golfers by GolfTEC, an instruction
franchise business with 200 world-
wide locations, Nick Clearwater
identifies six moves that differentiate
high-handicaps from the pros
(page 51). And Guy Yocom examines
how Zach Johnson learned to “wea-
ponise” the game’s numbers (page
56). The Cloud now offers us these
same opportunities for improve-
ment. Where did I put my shag bag?The Golf Life
|
JERRY TARDE
“ Big Data can unlock your
understanding of better scoring.”
R&A Championships/Getty Images