Work in Progress

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So goes a popular enough statement among a large enough segment of golfers to warrant a headline here. We have often made a simple enough response to the notion, but more recently, we thought perhaps it was time to consider it in more depth...enough.

At first glance, it seems a cliche. At least in the sense that it can offer a sort of excuse for those who haven't got their games to the level they would prefer. Like "Oh well, we have to remember that it's always a "work in progress," meaning "it will never be finished." So why should one be concerned?

A second glance may lead to a different rationale. It may be a "work in progress," because it can't be finished. We had occasion for that discussion recently in a taxi on the way to the Phoenix airport. The context was quite simple. While golf habits may share some likeness with habits of driving a car, riding a bike, etc., by its nature it is much more complex than those and other things we may do by habit, so there may always be adjustments and refinements to be made. We could say that about driving, in view of the habits of some drivers, but it still would not be the same. Perhaps if you wished to race bikes, ala Lance Armstrong, you might also have some of the needs for the kind of habit building that goes with golf, as well.

Either way, using the expression "in progress," implies a forever unfinished "product." So what shall we do? Conclude that the matter of golf will always be in flux, a never ending quagmire of ribbons with tattered ends, unforgiving in its madening, capricious, unrelenting instability? Or have we perhaps missed a point or two?

It seems not to be a terrible thing to say that one can never "master" the game, but then, what is mastery? The way golfers speak of it, one might conclude "mastery" equals "perfection. The point here is not perfection, but rather a way of acknowledging the power and importance of taking the game to the level of consistency in performance that is within the realms provided by Mother Nature.

On the other hand, life is always a work in progress, except at the funeral home and the cemetary. But it is possible to live one's lfe with great passion, excitement and fervor all at the hands of fine and well executed management. That does not mean that one will never make a mistake (as in hitting a bunker, water hazard, or simply and unrepared divot hole in the middle of the fairway). What it does mean is that excellence is best served by taking one's experience to the highest level allowable within human effort and ability. And that, my friends, is possible for golf - though not the way most go about it.

I asked this same question recently on the GO Forum (golf forum at www.golfopinions.com). There were some responses, though not many. I guess most don't quite know what to say. My reponses to the ones who ventured forth follows:

Thanks to each of you. What prompted my question is a recurring theme that seems to run contrary to much, if not all, of the rest of our individual lives. The things that we do most and best, seem to change infrequently. We don't mess with how we drive our cars (might need lessons, some of us), but we keep doing that the same way mostly and we don't have to practice in the driveway before we drive. (That's just one illustration of many).

(Name is omitted) is right, IMHO, that there are an awful lot of people out there that think anything short of "perfect" isn't acceptable. But that does leave something to be considered. As he says, it "illusive."

(Name omitted) is on the mark with the "combination of mind and body." (Name omitted) is right that life will go on.

And (name omitted), you get really into it with the difference between those who own a fairly finished product and those who are still working on it. (Someone once observed that Elvis "had flat found it," while everybody else was "searchin' for it").

My "wondering" centers around an overall picture in which we (golfers in general) appear to spend way too much time and energy experimenting with our games (trying to "find it"). In my opinion, it would make more sense, at whatever skill level, to find a helper (instructor) to trust, and then map a swing and playing plan (as in the way architects plan a structure), and then build the sucker and stick with till it's the best it can be!

No two people can really play this game exactly alike. They can't. "Mother Nature" gave us each our own special equipment and set of traits. (That's why I like Homer Kelley - because he said there are jillions of ways to swing. Just don't monkey around with trying to mix those parts that must be taken together. He didn't provide a "method." He provided the insight from research and balanced resource combinations for every swing anyone can find, and then some).

What happens is that the only true habit we wind up with is the habit of experimentation. Everything else in the game is left in flux. Even Tom Kite used to say that he went to the range each day to find the "swing du jour."

Sure, there will be daily differences (hopefully only slight) in our awareness, feel, attitude, and rested readiness. We aren't the same every day, but we do all those other things without too much problem. Just not our golf (generally speaking, of course).

What might we all say to this? One of the variables seems to lie in the fact that golf is such a solitary activity. It forces us to look at ourselves in a way that nothing else does. It invites us to the arena of self-mastery, where we have a lot of difficulty being satisfied, short of shooting 18, as one poster says. Maybe we don't want the "business" of the game to be finished. Maybe we are so engrossed by the promise and the challenge that it really is only comparable to a religious experience. Maybe we are afraid that if we get it right, we'll lose our desire and it's too much fun to consider that.

There may not be "an answer" to my question. But the question may open a window, or better, a door, that lets in some new light that can improve what we are doing and how we are going about it.

And so for this issue, we bring only these few thoughts as "morsels" to consider and hopefully, to digest.

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