The Heart Of Golf

What is it about this game?

What brings you to the course?

Why do you practice?

Why do you hit fifty, three-foot putts over and over? Is it the possibility of making your first birdie? Your first eagle? Or maybe it’s the day where lighting strikes and you get a hole in one. Maybe it’s for the camaraderie of getting the guys or gals together for the weekend. Maybe it’s the social atmosphere of being outside and meeting new people on the first tee. Maybe it’s the chance of breaking your own course record. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s for the simple chance at making that perfect swing.

Or maybe it’s because of the struggle we go through. The struggle to get better and most importantly, get through the struggle. Golf isn’t easy. This game doesn’t owe anyone, anything. We have to go out and get it. We have to spend hours on the range until our hands bleed. We have to spend that last hour on the range sharpening our short game.

For these said reasons, and reasons unknown, golfers from all over the world, embark on their own journey and experience their own struggle. That, my friends, truly is the heart of golf. It’s finding that love in your heart to get better, play harder, and compete at your highest level. It’s where you love the game so much you miss the feeling of struggling through a round, knowing tomorrow is going to be better. And you’re going to be better.

This game can bring us to our knees just as easy as it will bring us to the course at 5:00am. The first four holes can be magnificent and on the fifth tee box, a 7.8 earthquake hits your brain and for some odd reason, you shank it into the woods. You can’t figure it out. You look incredulously at your buddy and he just shrugs his shoulders. See,  he’s worrying about his own game. And the fact that he just saw you shank it, his brain is now flustered and hoping the San Andreas fault doesn’t crack.

But it does crack.

It happens to us all. Even the touring professionals. Take Rory McIlroy for instance. The kid, yes kid, dominated once again in a major. A year removed from his record-breaking performance at Congressional, McIlroy brought The Ocean Course on Kiawah Island to its bloodied knees. But wait, wasn’t McIlroy in a so-called “slump” earlier in the year? After holding off a charging Tiger Woods, and stoically winning the Honda Classic, McIlroy struggled with his game.

After a disappointing T40 at The Masters, McIlroy’s performance didn’t get any better. A missed cut at The PLAYERS Championship and another missed cut the following week at The Memorial, the golf world gasped and grabbed their inhalers needing more air. Rory followed those odious outings with yet another missed cut. This time, at The U.S. Open. What on earth could possibly be wrong with Rory? All the talking heads speculated until they all agreed to disagree on what was causing his bad play. Ahem, I will suggest with just one word what was “wrong” with Rory: golf.

Last I checked, golf is tough.  It’s really tough to be good for a long period of time. Fields are too deep with talent. I think we use the word ‘slump’ too often when golfers aren’t playing well. Golf happens. McIlroy, poised to win his first major, led the 2011 Masters stepping onto the tenth tee box. And then, golf happened. We all know how that horror story finished. But it turned out to be the best thing that happened to McIlroy. Two months later, he shut up the golf world and stomped the field at Congressional.

On Sunday afternoon, on a sunny and otherwise calm day at Kiawah Island, we saw a young man confidently walk down the fairways and calmly roll in putt after putt. We saw a player who was deemed to be in a slump, play like nobody could beat him. We saw the resolve of a champion brush off his struggle and turn them into a consummation. With a 25 foot birdie on 18, Rory McIlroy made history, yet again, at major championship.

The heart of golf isn’t hard to find. Rory found it. Are you next?

Hit ’em straight!

Eddie