Playing Golf
by Kent Young
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| Photograph by Skeet McAuley | ||||||||
| Mauna Lani Resort, Hawaii | ||||||||
| South Course, 7th hole, 1995 | ||||||||
| Panoramic Fujichrome, edition of 5, 28" x 84" | ||||||||
| Courtesy: Christopher Grimes Gallery | ||||||||
| ................Santa Monica, California | ||||||||
I do not propose to deal in theory. What I have learned I have
learned by laborious trial and error, watching a good player do
something that looked right to me, stumbling across something
that felt right to me, experimenting with that something to see
if it helped or hindered, adopting it if it helped, refining it
sometimes, discarding it if it didn't help, sometimes discarding
it later if it proved undependable in competition, experimenting
continually with new ideas and old ideas and all manner of variations
until I arrived at a set of fundamentals that appeared to me to be
right because they stood up and produced under all kinds of pressure.
Ben Hogan
................Making art is difficult. Most of my time is spent trying to find something interesting to do. Usually I end up with bad ideas poorly executed which never see the light of day. Yet my successes inspire me on. In the art world today the topics of conversation are often centered around technique or theory and usually the aim of such discussions is to figure out how and where one can fit in. Instead of an investigation of technique or theory in art, I want to tell you, briefly, about playing golf from an artist's point of view.
................I started playing golf seriously several years ago when I realized golf was a process of self learning. Playing golf highlights a state of being which goes beyond the game. Playing golf is like being naked--you are completely exposed. In one minute joy and excitement change to anger and disgust and your playing partners get to watch you fall apart like a house of cards in a hurricane. It can be very embarrassing. On the other hand, learning that the drama of a round of golf is similar to the drama of life and taking the good shots and the bad shots with an equal amount of courage is admirable. A golf adage: If you are thinking of marrying someone first play golf with that person.
................Something to think about: A round of golf takes about four and a half hours to play. During that round of golf, the golf club and golf ball come into contact with each other a total of about a half a second. Now, a golf swing from start to finish takes about one and a half seconds. And the average golfer takes about one hundred swipes at the golf ball during a round; two and a half minutes. Most of the time (four hours twenty-seven minutes twenty-eight and a half seconds) is spent preparing for the inevitable. So why do golfers spend so much time doing so little? It is the desire to repeat the sensation of when all of that "down" time coalesces within a fraction of a second, producing exactly what one wants. Time stops and everything is effortless.
................When it comes to the question of how one accomplishes the goal of swinging a golf club in such a way as to direct most of the energy to the golf ball, golfers are left to their own devices. Some common suggestions are stay balanced, keep your eyes on the ball and keep your head still. Even if these words had some meaning in the past, today they are so ubiquitous or academic that they completely defy meaning. After all, what does it mean to stay balanced?
................The avenues of questioning are limitless. In fact, the more familiar one becomes with golf, the more questions there are. For example, after one has garnered enough confidence to say, "I have a consistent swing," questions like what club to use come to mind. And once that question is addressed, does the ball need to fly low or high, from left to right, or right to left? It is mind boggling. The question I am trying to answer presently is how does one forget all of the distracting theories and bad advice handed down over the years on the proper way to swing a golf club so that one can make a swing at all? Maybe someone out there has the answer.
The greatest pleasure is obtained by improving.
Ben Hogan
................Golfers thrive on speculation. They are constantly trying different gadgets or new teaching philosophies, looking for the fundamental elements of golf. The process is inevitable and ongoing. Yet, it is the golfers demise. Where one theory may work or seem rational today, tomorrow that same theory will not hold water. And when there is no theory there is only confusion. What may seem as universal as time and space becomes as transitory as a sexual fantasy. The mantra at the practice range is, "If I only knew how to make the proper swing then..." It is the attempt to find a universal theory of golf which misses the point. It is by honoring the process with which one tests one's ideas that the golfer is created: trial and error.
................Finally, golf is something people can respond to visually. Offering views of the surrounding area, even the shabbiest of golf courses possesses solitude and beauty, a kind of charm that invites one to walk its length without a care in the world.
................To extrapolate the meaning of what has been discussed here may prove fruitless. On the other hand: Golf is more than a game, as art is sometimes more than a game, and perhaps the best way to talk about making art is to talk about something else.
Kent Young lives in Los Angeles
