I figured out what I was doing wrong, the most used, least factual, impossibly hopeful, phrase in golf. It represents the thousands of swing thoughts and grip changes along with an infinite number of YouTube videos available to the modern golfer. You will hear it a lot this time of year. By June the hope and promise of the winter have worn off. In June you realize that not only have you made no improvement this year; you are worse than last year. The golfer faces this painful realization and enters the portal of the swing fix. 

Your driving distance is off by forty yards. Your approach shots are now longer than your drives. You tell your friends that the driver was stored in an unheated area over the winter possibly affecting the flex of the shaft. A story that even you have a hard time believing. After scouring the golf instruction world, you settle on a tip from an instructor who looks like he has set up shop in a finished basement in Londonshire. You know it’s Great Britain because like all good golf instructors he speaks with an English accent. Anyway, this chap tells you to put your right thumb straight down the shaft of the driver not in the vee between your thumb and forefinger. Miraculously it works. Saturday morning on the first tee you hit a bomb straight down the middle. 

“Harry, it looks like you finally got that shaft up to room temperature.” 

“Naw, I figured out what I was doing wrong.” 

The fix lasts for the whole front nine until it doesn’t work and it never works again. No worries the next tip is right around the corner. 

Conditions have a big impact on golf in the Spring. Where I come from the weather is as unpredictable as a Trump tariff. Last Spring was dry; this Spring is wet. It’s so wet my ball plugged and didn’t go anywhere. The fairways are too soft, and the greens are too hard. Yet somehow the four iron you hit as your approach shot on a 320-yard par four takes off like a bullet, three feet off the ground, unexplainedly bouncing through the muddy apron and finally trickling onto the green. 

“Nice shot Harry.” Your partner knows that wasn’t a great shot, it wasn’t even a good shot, but it is the time of the season. 

“Thanks, I figured out what I was doing wrong.” 

The golfer’s mind will play tricks on him or her. The constant search for improvement can have devastating consequences. You’ve patched up the old swing, got her oiled and cleaned, and you’re out on the road and she’s running smooth. There is a satisfying click when the club hits the ball, the trajectory is straight and true, you can even work the ball a little, a fade here a draw there. Your scores are coming down. No reason to change anything. Golf is enjoyable again, but last night that British guy suggested you turn your right foot inward at address a move that was guaranteed to adds ten yards to your shots. The next day you are at the range warming up, still striping the ball, but you take your right foot and turn it inward. The next few shots are gifts from God, irons that soar into the air the ball flashing white as the sun’s rays pick it up; drives that make the clubhead sound like a rifle shot landing somewhere at the back of the range, sight unseen. Golf as you have never played it before. Falling over yourself you practically run to the first tee. Four hours later it’s over between you and the British guy. 

“Hey Harry, what happened? You have been playing great.” 

“I figured out what I was doing wrong.” 

Through all the tribulation that is the game of golf it is important to not give up. After all, there is fun in tweaking. So, tweak all you want, be Ponce de Leon, find that the fountain of youth was hidden in a golf tip that Moe Norman kept in a Crown Royal bag for forty years and is now available for only $19.95. If that doesn’t work….