Cronkite's Hungry
.
I started playing golf in earnest exactly a year ago, after my dad gave me a set of clubs. I'd been making these videos, and figured if I was going to spend all that time with golf in an "art" context, I should at least try playing the game.
I played once a year as a kid, when visiting my grandpa who was pretty avid about the game, and I remember hopping the fence at Cherry Hill in Amherst, MA to play with rusty clubs as a teenager. Last year, when I got my own clubs, I figured I'd give it a real shot. For months, I sucked. I shot 90, 110, even. I played in the rain, in the middle of winter, hitting 3-irons off frozen ground, and when it snowed. Slowly, I started getting better. I'd figure out something new about the swing, like the fact that it isn't even really a swing per se, and I'd put that into action and see what worked. I developed, shed, and re-cultivated bad habits. It was a lot like an art (or photography) project. You make bad decisions, think they're good, realize they're bad, and slowly get rid of them. I played a lot. Some days, 36 or more holes in 90-degree heat. I found all the courses close to home I could play cheaply (or for free) and set about trying to learn how to swing. Atlanta's a great town for golf, there are great courses everywhere, and some of them are even affordable, under $20. The municipal courses (where I play) are varied, and close, and each has its own particular charm. While learning how to play, I found it easier to consider golf less as a sport, or me as an athlete, and to think about the whole endeavor as if it were an art project. Golf is so cerebral, the battle lies in getting your head to allow your body to do something, rather than doing something with your body that your head can't believe. I'm not saying my game is a work of art, but it helped me to consider it as a kind of artistic effort -- it capitalized a lot of my photography time, so why not consider it a new kind of aesthetic skill, a combination of the visual and the performative? (More on all that, later.) The intersection of athletics and art is a personal sweetspot, and working on my swing felt exactly like everything else I've done with photography, or writing, or now, with video. A honing, a sharpening, a working toward a point that looks and feels right, with a distinct capability for something unknown, and beyond. Then again, I'm just a guy swinging a golf club. I attended a few PGA tournaments. I saw guys like Mickelson and McIlroy play unbelievable shots up close, right in front of me. Freed from the television, what I saw made sense; golf is physics, clubs crash into balls that take off and fly through the air. It's simple, really. YouTube helped. I watched slo-mo Hogan swings, videos about proper grip, and I incorporated what I'd seen into my nascent game. My good shots increased. I started to understand what the hell I was doing, and how it made the ball slice & hook, fade & draw. My goal was to spend a year learning the game and try to get to scratch. "Scratch" means you're a zero-handicap golfer, which means when you go play, you play Par for the course. I nearly made it. My average score slid from the 90s, down to the mid-80s, then high-70s/low-80s, and recently I've reached the low 70s where I've stabilized, unable to break into the 60s (for now). Along the way, I picked-up better clubs, a lighter bag, (I still play used balls I find in the woods), and my swing, while not very good, is getting better. I've learned what its tendencies are, and how best to employ my strengths while minimizing my weaknesses. I still haven't had a lesson. A guy gave me some tips at the range that were helpful, and steered me out of a rut, but honestly, I've learned the most by watching (YouTube vids and the Golf Channel), and recording my own swing, trying to diagnose problems myself. Last week I decided to ratchet-back my playing, maybe only play once-a-week, while life and work ramp-up into autumn. This morning I went out and managed to get my first Eagle, on a par-5, 18th hole. Better still were 11 putts on the back nine.
I'm increasingly fascinated by the frequency with which I'm encountering the phrase "it is what it is" which may be the King of Non-Statements, a way of saying absolutely nothing while still moving your mouth in front of a microphone.
I enjoy when nothingness masquerades as somethingness, when there's absence in presence, or its opposite. "It is what it is" is as much a reaction to the machinery of quote-making as it is an honest declaration of a state of being ("I am what I am"). From a spinach-doped Popeye to golfer Paul Goydos, you've got to wonder if "it is what it is" is the "I am what I am" brush-off of the alpha-male athlete set who can't be bothered to answer worthless questions from journalists. Less premeditated, it's at worst a faddish tic, a quoted shrug, the whatever eyeroll of athletic (and artistic, Chuck!) achievement.A quick list of "it is what it is" I've encountered in the last week and a half:
Tiger Woods, post-Tournament press conference, AT&T National, 7/4/10
Bradley Wiggins, post-Prologue interview, Tour de France, Cyclingnews Podcast, 7/4/10
Chris DiMarco, Opinionated w/ Chris DiMarco, discussing US Open. 6/24/10
Jered Weaver, discussing All-Star game snub, Los Angeles Times, 7/4/10
Paul Goydos, discussing his 59 at the John Deere, 7/8/10
Chuck Close, on Face Blindness, RadioLab podcast
Ricky Barnes, Open Championship, 7/16/10
