I am an average golfer and photographer, at best. But magic is possible, if rare, for the less-than-talented. Rarer still is a pairing of perfect shots.
Sixty years ago, in high school, I was number four out of the six who played matches on a mediocre varsity golf team. That said, I know the game and, occasionally, hit a shot that would not embarrass me if Arnie, Tiger, or Rory were looking on. A few days ago, I hit a drive for the ages, or at least for aging duffers like me. Back to that in a moment.
My iPhone counts 11,941 photos, with 100s more deleted. On the golf practice range, if you repeat a flawed swing, your strokes don’t improve. Quantity might not improve quality.
Because the same must be true for photography, I took a three-day beginner’s course a few years ago. I retained a couple of ideas: each photo should tell a story, and the rule of three, which means breaking an image into three segments vertically and horizontally.
For example, in the first photo, I wanted the bottom half of the picture, the tee area where the first shot, a drive, occurs, to be the most prominent. The middle segment, the light-green fairway, bends right toward the green where the hole is located. The horizon includes the tops of the trees, indicating the right-to-left direction of the wind.
I took the photo before I teed off, with my golfer’s imagination seeing precisely the flight I wanted my tee shot to follow. Start the ball to the right over the two pine trees and let the 21 MPH wind bring it back into the fairway. Which is exactly what happened.
I hope, at this point in the story, you perceive me as a reliable narrator.
Here is a rough diagram of the flight path of my ball, which landed about 220 yards from the senior tee, leaving an 80-yard pitch shot to the green.
Of course, I flubbed that shot, ending up with a bogey, one over par, on the hole.
But I’m proud of this photo and my tee shot.
In this world that humbles us even in our games and hobbies, we need to pat ourselves on the back occasionally. Besides, that movement of the arms, elbows, and shoulders toward the posterior is also the perfect stretching exercise for the golf swing.
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