May 8th 2014
It was Bubba what done it; well, Bubba and a “happy place”. The “happy place” belonged to my 3rd who mentioned it when I had a chance to talk to him about the season ahead. I had sort of planned a speech about how his despondency last season – when he was playing poorly, or when we were losing – was having an adverse affect on my own form, and was probably de-motivating the 1st and 2nd. I was going to ask him to stop moaning about his own team-mates (especially in front of the opposition) and to try to be more cheerful in general when we were playing. I wanted to acknowledge his competitiveness but also wanted him to recognise the essentially “amateur past-time” nature of our hobby without seeming to dilute in his eyes my own attitude to playing and winning. The trouble was that every time I went through it in my head it sounded like terribly complicated psycho-babble, and it also sounded very much like I was blaming him. I had to speak to him but I was dreading it.
I was dreading it partly because behind the psycho-babble was the logical, if somewhat brutal, conclusion of my overall theory of hitting and throwing: that unhappy people can’t swing their limbs pendulumically. For one thing their unhappiness tenses their muscles and for another their unhappiness clouds their imagination and prevents sharp images of perfect woods forming – and so unhappy people were less likely to throw good woods and win bowls matches. Of course, in the realm of a generous and kind hearted attitude for my fellow man – for which I am generally loved and respected – I also wanted my 3rd just to be happy. The problem is expressing that genuine sentiment when you know that it is not the only sentiment
Interestingly, however, under the pressure of having to talk about our “form” face to face, I came up with some words that had it that I needed him to be upbeat and bright because it helped to relax me. He immediately said that I was not to worry because he himself had decided that he was going to start to live in a “happy place”. I assumed he meant during our games of bowls but I suppose he could have meant his whole life! What a relief and what a brilliant start to the season.
For his part, Bubba won the Masters just before we had our first match of the season. As a result of his victory I came across a number of quotes and opinions about him and more particularly about his attitude towards “technique”. Since his last victory in the Masters, I had become aware that he had a somewhat unique approach to hitting golf balls but I hadn’t taken much notice because I had written him off as simply a long hitter of the sort so irritatingly beloved of the American commentators on their golf channels. After his second victory at Augusta I took a bit more notice and started to warm to him. I read that his philosophy on playing golf could be summed up in the slogan “think shot not swing”. The slogan fitted in with my own philosophy on playing and I thought a lot about it as our first match approached. I also re-read last season’s peregrinations as posted on this blog, and as a result I decided I was going to have to change how I thought of myself as a player.
Up to now I have thought of myself as a natural “non-timer” who, through the application of my theory of hitting and throwing, occasionally rises to the delightful heights of being a non-natural “timer”. Reading again of my travails last year, and thinking about Bubba’s imprecation to think “shot not swing”, it came to me that maybe it was time that I thought of myself as a non-natural “timer, and that I dumped the image of myself as a hopeless hacker struggling against the yoke of genetically imprinted ineptitude.
If I could think of myself as a “timer” who occasionally mislaid the genie of “timing”, I would be able to forget about the physics of the swing and assume that, after all these years, my muscle memory would default to swinging pendulumically, and instead concentrate on thinking “shot not swing”.
It also occurred to me that if I took my pendulumic swing for granted and thought of myself as a non-natural “timer” then it would be easier for me to adopt the confident, ever so slightly cocky mien that so suited playing a sport that depended wholly on being able to swing a relaxed arm under severe pressure. “Shot not swing” – I liked it, it suited me.
And so to the game. Well, games, actually, because at the time of writing we have played three matches – and we have won them all! Of course, there have been wobbles but, true to his word, my 3rd has found his “happy place” and seems determined to stay in residence despite provocations. As predicted the rest of us have benefitted and we are going well. My new identity has enabled me to find a really good rhythm and the woods are behaving beautifully. “Shot not swing” is the mantra; inwardly cocky is the pose; beautifully relaxed swinging arm is the result; and a big fat happy place is where we are all living. For now.
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