This article originally appeared in the March issue of NCGA Golf Magazine
By Ted Johnson
A baseball lover may want to know what it’s like to hit off a 90-mph fastball, and it can be achieved at a batting cage, usually with a machine firing baseballs. Shooting a 3 like Steph Curry can be done at the local high school gym. Of course, it’s not Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in front of you and with 19,000 screaming fans in the stands.
Golf, however, offers challenges that are more similar, and depending on the course and condition, can be very similar conditions that the world’s best have to confront. Let’s take the second shot at Pebble Beach’s famous par-4 eighth. It’s an expensive round, yes, but it is available to the public--and once on the course we can face the same challenges and decisions that PGA Tour pros face.
When it comes to No. 8 that we play on any given day, it may not be with hundreds watching on the gallery ropes during a U.S. Open. It probably isn’t going to be televised or publicized and yet it might be criticized. All of which doesn’t matter. It’s still the same shot – a long approach over the most beautiful coastline in California to a green that looks about as big as a dining room table. Tiger, Jack, Arnie and hundreds of thousands of other golfers have had that shot. And we can experience it, too.
It’s the same venue demanding the same execution. There’s the same stark reality that anything short is failure, and anything that leads to a par is worthy of a long, long celebration.
That’s the first part of my personal love of the game.
The rest comes the next time I play. It could happen in the men’s club tournament, or it could happen walking a quick nine in the Sunday gloaming, just me and my clubs. Golf always gives you challenges to assess: How to judge the tailwind on a downhill par-3; what kind of swing is needed from under a tree to get the ball near the green? When the shot comes off as needed, it’s like a harpoon of good feelings enters my heart and anchors into my soul.
It could be the straight drive off No. 1, or an approach that hangs in the air as it descends on the pin – each shot offers a challenge, and it’s up to us to meet it. Put another way, after sinking a 4-foot putt, it’s always good to remind ourselves that no one – not even Tiger – could achieve a better result.
That’s why I play.
