It started as another typical Saturday. Raw Meal breakfast. Cup of joe to go. Run errands, then down south to the Raven for the day's rock pile session. Ran into Martin Chuck. Had a nice lunch.
By chance, there was an opening to squeeze in right when the rates dropped at 2 PM. Weather was perfect. Felt good. Why not?
Got paired up with some Q-School dudes gunning for spots on the tour. They played from way back, made it hard on themselves, and just smashed the ball around for fun. Was a great experience playing with them and watching how good their short game was, which gave them the confidence to attack the stick knowing that if they missed, having to get up and down was no big deal. I'm only guessing, but it seemed like they weren't playing for score. Rather they were letting random stuff happen to practice how to get out of, or capitalize on, this situation or that.
On the wow front, their ball flight off the tee is indelibly inked in my brain as something to envy, and figure out how to achieve. Wedge distances are about the same, but they're a club longer around the 7 iron, and two clubs longer with the long irons. I've more work to do. Watching the ball flights, I think it has to do with the amount of de-lofting at strike and just more head speed.
Mentally, it was heaps of on-the-spot spot performance pressure training to hit my drive with my two day old driver after watching theirs get smoked down the fairway 320 yards or more. As with other sports, just dove in and played from the same tees they did all day. Recipe for becoming really good is accepting you're not, and don't quit. It was sweet.
It was good session, and after all rock pile work so far, getting feedback on how wee bit legit my game is (I'm not anywhere near their calibre) in their eyes, as the old guy among youngathletes chasing whatever 20 somethings chase. Golf's a nice job if you're one of the best 125 on the planet. If not, you still have incredible talent, and need to figure out how to monetize the value of that as enabler of something else more lucrative. Listening to their plans and dreams as they were trying to figure out the concept of value and how economic slave ship earth works was a journey back to a time when I did the same.
Practically speaking, at my age, leverage will come from the mental side of things. So today was more Dalai Lama time that was fresh, and fun.
(via Jiro on iPhone)