Sunday, January 01, 2012

"What Is The Golf Swing," by Roy McAvoy

I never used to like golf. I shared Molly’s (Roy McAvoy's love intrest in the movie Tin Cup) view about golf.

You know, this is without a doubt the stupidest, silliest...most idiotic, grotesquely masquerading game ever invented.


But then, due to some persistent encouragement from my cousin Prabhu and my colleagues at SITA, I am now hooked on~to golf. I watched Tin Cup recently, where Roy McAvoy explains the golf swing.

Here it goes…

Well, I tend to think of the golf swing as a poem.

The critical opening phrase of this poem will always be the grip. The hands unite to form a single unit by the simple overlap of the little finger.

Lowly and slowly, the clubhead is led back, pulled into position not by the hands, but by the body, which turns away from the target, shifting weight to the right side without shifting balance.

Tempo is everything; perfection unobtainable as the body coils down at the top of the swing. There's a slight hesitation. A little nod to the gods...

Yeah, to the gods. That he is fallible. That perfection is unobtainable. And now the weight begins shifting back to the left pulled by the powers inside the earth, it's alive, this swing!

A living sculpture and down through contact, always down, striking the ball crisply, with character.

A tuning fork goes off in your loins.

Such a pure feeling is the well-struck golf shot.

Now, don’t rush into thinking that I have mastered the game, and have a very low handicap; on the contrary I have mastered the art of playing most frustrating rounds of golf. Without exception, every round of 18 holes I have played, I have scored centuries (on a par 62 course).

You might ask, why do you subject yourself to this sort of frustration, but then Roy McAvoy answers that question too.

Yes ma'am and that's why I love it. Now if you hit one good shot, just one, and that tuning fork rings in your loins and you can't wait to get back...and do it again.