Excerpt
The Broken Stick
My year of golf began officially--not that there were any officials keeping track--in October 1995, with a lesson from Michael Hebron. It was my first golf lesson ever, and in addition to the predictable paranoia anyone would feel handing over something valuable to a stranger (one's soul to a priest, one's mind to a shrink, one's swing to a golf coach), I was intimidated by Hebron's reputation. One of the country's most respected teachers, just a notch of renown below the celebrity instructors like David Leadbetter and Butch Harmon who hang out on the PGA Tour practice tee, he is the author of (among other titles) The Art and Zen of Learning Golf, a title which intrigued me. Among his former students were Tom Kite, Ian Woosnam, and Davis Love III.
Given my tight budget, I hoped to talk Hebron into giving me lessons for free, or at least at a steep discount, and most of my thoughts during the drive to the lesson concerned how to make my case. "I am no ordinary student," I rehearsed out loud in the car. "I am on a quest. I am embarking on an everyman adventure sure to be of interest to all living Americans. My goal is to penetrate the very heart of golf. I will practice like crazy. My hands will bleed. I will purify my thoughts and become the ball. And all I need to succeed is your instruction--and your support." In practicing these remarks I made dramatic gesticulations with my nonsteering hand. By the time I arrived at the Smithtown Landing Country Club on Long Island, where Hebron teaches, I felt reasonably confident.
At the pro shop, however, the clerk insisted that I pay $150 in advance--so much for the free lesson--and when I walked down the hill to the covered teaching tee and spotted Hebron working with a strong young Japanese player, my self-assurance melted. The student, so far as I could tell, possessed an absolutely flawless swing. Which particular, minute detail of the swing he and Hebron might have been working on was impossible to determine. After each swipe at the ball the Japanese guy held his finish like someone posing for the PGA Tour logo. Nevertheless, Hebron always stepped in to suggest some adjustment: a one-centimeter forward shift of the upper torso, perhaps, or a half-degree left swivel of the hips. I had to assume the Japanese guy couldn't putt; otherwise it seemed certain that I would have recognized him from the Tour.
When the lesson ended they shook hands, then bowed to each other in the Oriental fashion, and Hebron walked over to where I stood trying to look nonchalant and introduced himself. He was a decent-looking man in his early fifties, fit and of average height, with sandy, gray-speckled hair and a boyish face that was just beginning to show the effects of years in the sun. But his eyes are what caught my attention. They were striking, vivid blue and penetrating, yet strangely nonrevealing, like a reptile's.
"What can I help you with?" he asked.
The words of my carefully composed little speech deserted me. Whatever confidence I had had in the car was now completely gone, replaced by need--raw, unadulterated, heartfelt need. I stood before Hebron's reptile gaze stripped of all pretense, suddenly as awestruck as a child who finally gets to the front of the Santa Claus line at the department store. I could only sputter nonsense. What I really, desperately wanted, I realized, was the same thing all golfers want.
"I wanna get better," I said. "I wanna get better at golf."
Hebron nodded understandingly and said, "Let's see you hit a few balls." He told me later that new students often break down in this kind of confessional way ("It can get emotional out here," he said), so in hurrying me to the practice mat he was probably trying to keep things from getting messy.
I chose my pitching wedge to hit with because the wedge is generally one of the hardest clubs to screw up with. I took my time, stretching a little while trying to regain my emotional equilibrium, and slapped a half dozen balls towards the 125-yard sign. The results were better than I could have expected. I hit every ball on the noggin, and one actually hit the 125-yard sign. My confidence came back.
When I turned around to face Hebron, however, he was nodding ominously--like a doctor who has seen the lab report but is not yet ready to divulge the disheartening results. "Yes, I see a few things," he said noncommittally.
Then he asked me to hit a few more balls with a video camera rolling, and after he ejected the tape we walked up a cart path (my cleats clattering on the pavement) to a small, cinder block shed a pitch shot away. He asked me what my handicap was.
"Five," I told him. "No wait. Actually, three." In fact at that moment it was 2.7, but the Japanese guy and Hebron's enigmatic nods had left me feeling insecure.
I decided to broach the subject of my grand plans for the Year of Golf. "My intention, you see, is to work really hard on golf for an entire year." I tried to sound positive, but couldn't bring myself to mention anything about Q School or turning pro. "I'm going to practice really, really hard and my object is to see how good I can get in that time."
"I know the answer to that one," Hebron said brightly. "Not very."
"Not very?"
"That's right."
"But . . . don't you think if I absolutely commit myself to golf for an entire year, I can get better?"
"Not much," he said.
"Not much?"
"That's right."
I didn't quite know how to respond. Wasn't a teacher supposed to be encouraging? We walked on, my cleats echoing in the uncomfortable silence. Finally I said, "Why is it you think that?"
"Because the golf swing is complicated. You've got seventy bones and two hundred muscles and they all have to work together. That isn't easy to make happen."
Hebron could tell that I wasn't satisfied with this response. "Let me put it another way," he continued. "College golfers usually start out with a handicap about like yours, three or four. They play 250 days a year, three or four hours a day, for four or five years, and usually by the time they graduate they're scratch players. The ones who go on to do well after that are the ones who happen to be very good in the short game, but that's another issue. And grown-ups like yourself don't have nearly that much time to devote to the game, so it takes even longer."