First Tee Panic

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  You have fourteen clubs to choose from. If you have more than fourteen, maybe from your kids tossing extras in, make sure to take them out before you get to the first tee. Rule is, only fourteen clubs allowed. And actually, at the moment you only have thirteen to pick from. You’re not going to be hitting any balls with your putter on the driving range. And if you even think about it, you made the wrong turn at the front driveway. You wanted the course with the castles and the big clown mouth that opens and closes.

  So, thirteen clubs to pick from.

  But which one first?

  You glance around at the others hitting balls, sending those clean white spheres into the air with a sense of beauty and purpose you only can hope for. There doesn’t seem to be any logic in what clubs they are using, since they arrived at different times before you. Some are hitting drivers, others flip wedges, others long irons.

  Don’t panic, there is a real reason for starting with certain clubs first in a warm-up practice session. And if you follow the basic guidelines I’m about to give you, not only will your warm-up be good for your body, but it will help you get off that dreaded first tee.

  First, grab a seven iron.

  Your goal with this club is to just get your body lose enough to swing a golf club. You have no intention of hitting good shots right off the bat, so don’t even think about it. Just take the seven iron to the teeing area nearest your cart, do a few basic warm-up stretches to get muscles loosened, then generally hit a ball with about a half swing.

  Half swing means the club doesn’t go above head high on the back swing.

  This going slow on the first swing is so that you don’t pull tired and car-weary muscles. Last thing you need on this special day of golf is to be hauled off in an ambulance with a wrenched back. And trust me, I’ve seen it happen more than once from these first swings.

  Let me repeat, you don’t care if you hit the shot right or not. Don’t even look. Just half-swing and make contact.

  That’s success at this time of the morning.

  Take another half swing and hit another. Then on the third take a little fuller swing. Repeat this for five to ten balls until your hands can feel the club, your grip doesn’t feel like you’re holding the head of an alien snake, and your back stops cracking.

  If you are going to be the very first group off the tee, the grass is still damp with dew, and you have on two sweaters and a thick windbreaker, make this first part of the practice at least twenty golf balls, or until your hands stop stinging every time you hit the ball.

  Now, you’re a little looser and warmed up, so go back to the cart and get a nine iron.

  It’s time to start hitting shots directly at a target.

  Golf is, after all, a game of targets.

  Never hit a golf shot after the first ten or so warm-up balls without a target clearly in mind. If you can actually keep a target in mind for every shot of the round, you will cut strokes off your game. But that lesson is for another time. Right now you are practicing to get off the first tee, and picking a target is critical.

  There should be signs on the driving range in front of you, or different colored flag poles stuck into pretend greens. Those are targets. Pick the one that says 100 Yards and aim at it. With about a three quarter swing with the nine iron, fire away.

  Five or ten balls, you should be narrowing in or over that sign, and if you’re pretty strong, maybe even bouncing the nine irons in front of the 150 yard sign.

  But don’t push, don’t try to hit anything hard. Work on just making smooth, comfortable swings, time after time, repeating the same swing over and over and over.

  After being a game of targets, golf is secondly a game of repeating an impossible movement of your body. It is a very physical game, so don’t ignore that aspect. You are warming up now to have a great, injury-free day, and get that first shot off the first tee.

  Go easy.

  Another tip: Step away from the ball between every shot. Don’t just pull another ball to you and fire away. Put another ball in place and then step back, as if this next shot is your first shot on the course. Pick a target and just repeat the word smooth over and over.

  If you don’t understand what I mean by smooth, just think about Fred Couples’ golf swing. It don’t get no smoother than that.

  Now after ten balls or so with the nine iron, get a five iron, pick a target just beyond the 150 yard sign and do another ten balls, again working on staying smooth. Just like the nine iron, make sure you step away from the ball between each shot, line up a target, swing smooth.

  If you miss a shot, forget it, laugh, and focus on target and being smooth on the next shot. This is golf, not rocket science. You are going to miss more shots than you are going to hit. Don’t worry about it.

  Relax, pick a target, swing smoothly.

  After that, try a few fairway woods, then grab the big wood, the driver, which is more than likely made out of metal these days, but they still call it “The Big Stick.”

  This is, most likely, the club you will hold in your hands on the first tee.

  Don’t think about it.

  Just pick a target and have at it. There just ain’t nothing more fun than powering drivers on a driving range, swinging away at a fairway in front of you so wide they could put the entire O’Hare airport on it. And no matter how bad you hit these drivers, you don’t have to chase the ball. You just tee another ball up and hit again.

  Happy, happy, joy, joy.

  You’re warmed up, you’re swinging smoothly.

  Go for the fence. On the range, you have nothing to lose.

  5

  HELP! WHAT CLUB SHOULD I HIT LAST ON THE DRIVING RANGE?

  OKAY, TO BE HONEST, the jury is out on this question.

  If the first club you’re going to hit on the first hole is a driver, many professionals think that a driver should be your last memory on a driving range, so that when you get to the first tee, you can bring back that fresh memory and repeat.

  How does this line of thinking work? Actually, fairly logically, and you’re going to use this when you get to the first tee, so pay attention.

  While on the range, swinging away with your driver, you are bound to hit one perfect shot, a ball that feels sharp and hard on the club face, that flies straight at your target like you’ve been playing the game for a hundred years. When that happens, stand there and remember, no memorize the feeling of the swing, watch the ball fly away, and then land. Hold your follow-through like you’re posing for a picture done by a guy who hasn’t yet figured out his new camera.

  Memorize the feel of the shot.

  Put the image of the shot in your mind’s eye.

  Then put the club away in your bag. Don’t try to repeat that perfection until you get to the first tee. All you’ll do is screw it up and confuse the issue.

  The other side of the argument for which club to hit last votes for one of your wedges. Many professionals think a cool-down is needed in a pre-round practice session. They believe a player should work back from a driver down to a wedge, then a half wedge, then a few chip shots off the end of the driving range tee after that perfect drive.

  This thinking assumes a few things. First, you are at a country club that furnishes unlimited practice balls. Or you bought a really big bucket of balls. If you bought the small bucket, make the good driver your last shot, even if that perfect last shot is three balls from your last ball. Hit the good shot, stop, and walk away.

  The second thing cool-down thinking assumes is that you are there on the range far enough ahead of your tee time to take the extra time. Make sure you save some time for putting, remember.

  So, let’s assume you have the range balls and the time, why not work back down the clubs? It only seems like a logical way to practice. And what can hitting a few more golf balls hurt?

  Again, let me repeat. While you are doing this, focus on targets and swinging smoothly.

  So, to answer the question of this chapter, always end with a dri
ver on a great shot if you bought a small bucket.

  Or with a big bucket of balls, end chipping a dozen or so balls twenty yards off the end of the tee, but do that only after you have ended the practice with the driver with that perfect shot. Either choice is right, either will work, both make you look like you know what you are doing.

  And more importantly, both will help you in different ways get off that first tee with success.

  6

  HELP! HOW MANY PRACTICE PUTTS IS TOO MANY?

  THE ANSWER TO this question is very, very simple. You have hit too many practice putts when you are suddenly late for your tee time and have to rush to the first tee, thus causing you to be upset and likely miss the first shot.

  Otherwise, a golfer can never practice putting enough.

  Ever.

  Let me add some personal comments here.

  I used to be a really great putter back when I was young and had a lifetime of extra time. I wasn’t that strong from tee to green, but get me on the green and I had a belief that I could make any putt from any distance.

  And I often did.

  How did I get like that? Simple, actually. I spent hours and hours and hours, day after day, year after year, on putting greens. I would bet my friends ten cents a hole on a putting contest around the eighteen holes on the putting green. (Later that became a buck a hole, and more even later when I turned professional, but I won’t go into that aspect of the game here.)

  I even have many memories back in high school of starting my parent’s car, aiming the headlights at the putting green, and practicing until after midnight. Of course, back then I needed a real life, and a few more dates, but not having a social life sure helped my putting.

  The upshot was that when I got to the golf course and stood over a putt, I never thought of the mechanical movement of putting, I simply just knew the ball was going into the hole because I had made a thousand putts just like the one I had in front of me. And if the ball didn’t go in, chances are I just read the break in the green wrong.

  This kind of practice needs to be done long before you get to a country club for a big match like we’re talking about here. The goal of practice putting when you are at a country club isn’t to make your putting better, it’s to get the “feel” of the greens.

  How fast are they?

  How slow?

  Do they have grain? (Which way the grass grows because if you can see which way the grass is growing, putts break more that way and less against the grain. Bet you always wondered what those announcers were talking about when they said, “The grain got him.”)

  So, to be deadly honest, there is no amount of putts on a practice green right before a big match that are going to help you that day. Your putting is either going to suck or be great, depending on a few factors that have nothing to do with the amount of putts you hit before the round.

  First, it depends on how much you have practiced your putting at home, on your home course, in your office, or in long hallways when staying at a hotel.

  Second, how good you are feeling that day.

  Third, and never forget third: Luck. Often great putting is just some luck.

  So, before you start the round, just get the feel of the green, the sense of the speed, the look of the hole by hitting a few dozen putts from different distances, then give it up, head back to your cart, and go grab a snack and a bottle of water while you wait to call your group to the first tee.

  But, one final tip. Always end your practice putts on a putt you made. Just like the great driver on the green, it will put a positive image of the ball going into the hole in your mind.

  Everything about golf is a mind game, so don’t fight it.

  Just play along.

  7

  HELP! THE STARTER HAS JUST CALLED OUR GROUP

  AND I’M FROZEN STIFF

  METAPHORICALLY, OF COURSE. Actually, more than likely, you have already shed your morning coat and are down to just a sweater and your golf attire. But that echoing call over the practice putting green sends a wave of excitement and fear through you.

  “Smith foursome on the tee, Jones group on deck.”

  You jump in your cart and follow the small signs toward the first tee. Interestingly enough, on many of these big courses, the first tee is a good distance away. Don’t get lost. Trust the signs. They will be much bigger than those warning you away from the dining room in the clubhouse.

  A man or woman with a big smile, scorecards, and a quick lecture on the day’s local rules will greet you at the first tee. Pay attention to those rules as well, since they may mean the difference between a good day and a bad one. And hope it isn’t a “path only” day. If it is, that means you have to leave the golf cart on the path no matter where your shot ends up. By the sixteenth hole on days like that, you tend to aim toward the side of the fairway with the golf cart path. Trust me, it can be a long, long walk from a cart on one side of the fairway to deep in the desert or trees on the other side. Especially if you get to your ball and discover you need a different club.

  But assume it’s a great day, you can take the cart anywhere, and the local rules are about things like not damaging any cactus.

  So how do you make yourself relax enough to hit the ball somewhere down the first fairway? The answer is, simply, you won’t relax. But that doesn’t mean you can’t hit a great shot.

  Joke with your playing partners, and make sure you get enough strokes on the bets. I used to make sure I didn’t get enough strokes from better players for two reasons. First, it made me play better, or so I thought. Second, I had more money then sense.

  Don’t do as I did on this topic of setting bets on the first tee. Get the strokes. As far as your friends are concerned, on the bets for drinks and dinner, you are the worst player to ever walk on a golf course and it still wouldn’t be fair if they gave you a stroke a hole to make up for your defects.

  Of course, they’re going to be trying to get the best deal as well, so the compromise ends up taking some first tee time.

  When that’s all done, and the starter says, “Play away, folks,” it’s again time to get serious.

  Remember that great last drive on the range? Remember how it felt? Now’s the time to start thinking about it.

  Then follow the very easy steps in the next part that will help you stay calm enough to make contact with the ball and get started into a fun day of golf. Note, I didn’t say stay calm completely. I’m not a miracle worker here.

  But if you do remember that great shot on the driving range where your drive sailed perfectly on target, you have managed step one.

  8

  EASING THE TENSION

  FIRST, TAKE A DEEP BREATH. Giving birth to this first round isn’t going to be as painful as delivering a baby, but breathing really does help if you don’t want it to be as messy. The last thing you need to be is light-headed walking up there between the tee markers. Fainting on your golf ball really is the stuff of jokes and legends, although I will have to admit, I have only heard of golfers passing out on the first tee, and one guy going to his knees with a heart attack. I have never actually seen it happen.

  And thankfully, it hasn’t happened to me.

  But it does happen. I thought I might pass out once on the first tee at Olympic Club outside of San Francisco. They had the tee markers backed up so close to a giant window in the old clubhouse, I swore my back-swing was going to break the window between me and a hundred or so people in the bar. The fairway snaked down the hill away from me, with trees on the edge so tall, it looked like I was staring down a tunnel instead of a fairway. I managed to keep breathing, but I have no memory of where that drive went. I do remember sort of coming to as I walked past the woman’s tee markers.

  So breathe, slowly and deeply while you do the second step, which is to get your driver out of your bag. Toss the head-cover either into the cart’s basket behind the clubs, or on the seat of your cart where you will see it when you go to sit down.

  Don’t
take it onto the tee with you. Doing so is just asking for trouble and having to drive back down the first fairway to get it after you remember where you left it. So leave it where you are going to sit on it, or put it in the basket where it can just ride along until you come to your senses.

  Third step, no matter how many jokes are flying among your friends and the starter, remember to get your golf ball. I can’t tell you how many times it was my turn to go to the first tee and I didn’t have a ball ready. For some reason, for some of us, that little fact just slips our minds in this preparation routine.

  Breathe.

  Get your ball, and put a second one in your pocket just in case. Don’t think about why. Just put it there and forget it.

  Breathe.

  I said don’t think about why that second ball is with you. So stop it and breathe.

  Now, get at least two tees, one for the ball in your hand, one for a spare in your pocket.

  Breathe.

  You’re ready, so climb onto the first tee.

  It doesn’t matter if it’s flat from the cart path to the tee, or downhill. It’s still climbing onto the tee like a prizefighter climbs into a ring in a fight. This is the area you’re going to battle.

  This is the start of the round.

  It’s you against yourself and the acreage stretched out in front of you.

  Gaze down the fairway at your opponent.

  Yeah, I know, it looks impossibly narrow.

  And really nasty.

  And those looming sand traps could swallow your entire house and not even burp.

  Breathe.

  Hitting the fairway doesn’t matter. Remember that.

  Repeat after me... “Hitting the fairway doesn’t matter.”

  The goal now is to just get off this tee box alive and with some dignity intact.

  So, instead of staring at the fairway of doom, spend this moment picking a target, more than likely a tree or cactus or rock on a mountain in the distance.