The green is smooth, not a blemish in sight. It even looks relatively flat. The ball is perfectly still. The wind isn’t blowing. There is no glare from the sun. It’s big hole and a little ball. It’s only 5 feet. How hard can it be? When it comes to putting, it’s damned hard – one of the most difficult things an adult male will ever be asked to do – next to shopping with your wife for a dress that doesn’t make her rear end look big.
So you approach the green with all the swagger of Reggie Jackson at the plate in October. You even bend to repair a ball mark, except it wasn’t your ball mark. Your approach shot hit the sprinkler system, caromed off the No Carts sign and dribbled its way onto the putting surface. It was lucky, but you’ll take it.
If the ball goes in, you can mark a 3 on your scorecard, your first birdie in, well… forever. Like the pros, you circle the flag, examining any subtle break while your mind is calculating that you’ll miss it, of course. To impress the others in your foursome, you lie on the green on the opposite of the ball in a prone position with one back leg up, a la Camilo Villegas. Now you can’t get up. You have to signal for help. With much effort, your partner grabs you by the belt and heaves you off the ground. You still have no clue which way the ball will break, but it was grand effort. And something you will never try again.
“You’re away,” you remark to, actually, all the others, and each miss long putts for tap-ins. Now it’s your turn, but you would rather be bungee jumping from the New River Bridge with a heavy rubber band.
But you delay, by marking your ball, and picking it up and wiping it off for the third time. Then, as the pros suggest, you line up the letters on the ball towards the hole. They are all X’s. Somehow you’ve been playing with a range ball since number 3. It was yellow, you should have known.
Time to putt or get off the pot, so you approach the dreaded ball, which now looks significantly larger while the hole has shrunk to the approximate diameter of a gnat’s behind. You’re not even sure that the ball will fit in the hole if it tries to go in.
The knocking sound everyone hears is your knees and the jiggling of loose tees in your pockets makes it hard to concentrate. Nicklaus would stand for agonizing minutes over this putt, but Michelson would take one look and putt the damned thing. Course, Michelson misses a lot, but you decide to take the Mickelson approach. You line up the putt, calculate ball speed and break (C x D x the square root of 18 plus 24, your handicap) and you putt. In slow motion the ball springs off the face of your 1962-vintage, Acushnet putter and heads for the hole. It’s on line, it’s breaking to the left as you thought, it’s going to… be short by 2-inches.
Fortunately, putting is only one part of the game. Too bad I can’t hit irons or woods either, or I’d be a helluva golfer.