(DESIGNATED NOTE: Ron Higgins is an award-winning (what?!) sportswriter with previous stops in Shreveport and Memphis, where he covered the SEC like paper covers stone. Now he is cranking for The Times-Picayune/NOLA.com. He grew up as the son of LSU’s longtime sports information director, Ace Higgins. At 6-5 give or take, he is our tallest Designated Contributor to date.)
By Ron Higgins, Designated Contributor
BATON ROUGE — First, let me say it’s an honor to be a pinch-hitter — or would that be a pinch writer? — on Designated Writers, a brilliant concept founded by J.J. Marshall and TeddyAlllllllensportwriterfromMonroe, (long story for later), two of the best stream of consciousness writers I’ve ever been around.
That said, my initial literary offering is close to my heart.
With the weather getting warmer, especially down here in south Louisiana where it rarely gets cold (below 30 degrees) for more than a week for the entire year, everybody is breaking out their golf clubs and hitting the links.
I take advantage of the favorable weather down here, so I try to play year-round.
You’d think as much as I play, you’d imagine I’d be a guy who consistently shoots in the lows 80s and dips into the high 70s.
Man, if I ever broke 80, I’d roll naked on a green.
You see, I am a proud hacker, someone who loves to play yet has no shot of ever breaking par, even for nine holes.
Hackers, at their very best, play like the following:
We may have an astounding six-hole streak of three pars, a birdie (how in the hell did that happen?) and two bogeys. Then we finish the front nine double-bogey, bogey and triple-bogey and look forward at the turn to grabbing an $8.50 three-day old prepackaged ham-and-cheese sandwich with alleged meat.
Hackers read golf magazine after golf magazine, looking for that one tip to give them that one magical round, or heaven forbid a hole-in-one.
I’ve been close many times to a hole-in-one. I’ve had plenty of tap-in birdies on par 3s.
Some of them have been on majestic iron shots in which I’ve played my natural slice perfectly. Others I’ve scudded off the tee, rolling 100-plus yards on the concrete fairways of low-rent public courses and parking themselves right next to the pin.
If I don’t ever get a hole-in-one, I’ve planned for my greatest golfing accomplish to be having a pizza delivered to me on a course during my round. It’s such an Elvis thing to do.
The one bit of golfing help you won’t find anywhere – magazines, videos or websites – is tips for hackers like myself.
Not tips for improvement.
Face the truth, it ain’t gonna happen. A hackers’ golf game, in the words of renown Tuscaloosa orator and football coach Nicktator Sabanator, “it is what it is.”
With that in mind, I’m here to help guys, gals and children of all ages who are hackers like myself. They must learn how to embrace who they are on a golf course.
So, here’s my Five Quick and Easy Tips for Everyday Hackers.
Take them to heart. Know them. Memorize them. Recite them. Chant them like a mantra:
1. Dress like a champion:If you can’t play good, then you’ve got to look good. When you match your shirt color with your pants and your cap (and sometimes your shoes), it gives the impression to strangers that you must be a helluva golfer. Don’t wear a Waffle House cap, which I did once. I did not play well. Off the tee my driver was scattered, my irons were topped, my short game was chunked and my putting was dicey.
2. Play to your comfort zone:I have spent the majority of my golfing career hitting second and third shots on par fours and fives that most golfers wouldn’t even try. That’s because they do boring stuff like driving the ball off the tee right down the middle, a place that is not my comfort zone.
Right down the middle means I start getting wild thoughts like, “Damn, I may par this hole.” Then I top my second shot and it rolls into the only sand trap on that hole.
But when I slice or hook my tee shot into somebody’s backyard, well, it feels like home. Whether it’s a barking dog on a leash or navigating a swing set and taking a free drop because my ball rolled under a rusty barbecue pit, I’m at my very best when it looks like I’m in deep doo-doo, which by the way, is a definite backyard hazard. Maybe the greatest shot of my golf career came at TPC Southwind in Memphis, site of the St. Jude Classic. On the extremely challenging 495-yard par-5 No. 3, I hit my tee shot almost 260 yards, but it landed in a backyard between a rusty bicycle with a flat tire and a dead snake.
A normal golfer would have chipped safely sideways into the fairway. Yet, for me, it was natural to airmail a three-wood shot between two trees and on to the green that was shoved in between traps on the left and water on the right. Faced with a 20-footer for a eagle, I did what all hackers do. I three-putted for a bogey 6. And felt GREAT about it.
3. Anger management:This is an often-overlooked element that affects all golfers, not just hackers. Even low handicappers who keep hitting a certain club badly over and over cannot hold their temper. They cuss. They beat their club in the ground. They tell themselves how much they hate the game of golf. After years of personal agony and experimentation, I’ve found something that allows me to release my frustrations and then I feel refreshed.
Here’s what you do: Go to any store that sells old used golf clubs. Seek out the worst clubs individually and buy as many as you can for $50. If you’re lucky, you can buy five. Get a variety. A couple of woods, an iron, a wedge and a putter. Make sure all the woods and the iron have fiberglass or graphite shafts. The wedge and the putter need to be steel. Put all five clubs in your bag.
Then, if there’s a certain club in your own set that is just killing you during the round — say it’s your driver that is absolutely pissing you off — instead of cussing or beating your driver in the ground, walk to your cart, calmly put your driver in the bag, remove the cheap used driver, snap it over your knee and toss it aside a la Bo Jackson and his baseball bats back in the day.
Here’s a helpful hint: Your cheap drivers and irons with the fiberglass or graphite shafts are always easier to break over your knee. Your cheap wedges are ideal at hurling into lakes and ponds, because they are top heavy. They fly far and sink quick. And there’s no better release after your 10th three-putt of the day than to take your rusty discount putter and beat it against a tree until the head flies off.
4. Pick a playing partner who, like yourself, doesn’t play by the rules of golf and doesn’t care about the score: Playing partners like I just described are hard to find. Everyone is so damned competitive. It’s why Jack Higgins, my younger son known as “Dude,” is the best playing partner I’ve ever had. If there’s nobody immediately playing behind us, Dude will keep launching tee shots until he hits one he thinks he can locate. Playing with Dude is an all-you-can-hit-mulligan buffet.
There are no penalty strokes with Dude. He never looks for a lost ball. Dude doesn’t wander in brush or trees looking for his ball. “Dude, that’s like playing on a snake’s homefield,” he says. Then, he adds, “Dude, it’s just a golf ball. I’ll just throw another one down right here in fairway.”
Dude is the most relaxed putter I’ve ever seen. I said, `Dude, you are so chill on a green. Explain.’ He says, `Dude, if I’m on the green putting for a birdie, all I’m thinking `I hope I get a bogey.’ Takes the pressure off, Dude.”
Which brings me to. . .
5. Lower your expectations: Don’t think you are a good golfer and ever will be a good golfer. Because the moment you do, you’ll expect too much of yourself and you’ll start choking like Kobayashi trying to down his 75thwiener at the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest. The best rounds of golf I play each year are the ones after I haven’t picked up my clubs and played in a while. I expect that I’ll probably suck, so there’s no pressure. And then I’ll shoot so well that I can’t wait to play again, because I’m convinced I’ll shoot even better the next time out.
Which I won’t.
Because I’m a hacker.
And so are you.
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