An American Golfer in Ireland

Today’s post is written by guest author Jim O’Donnell, who fulfilled a lifetime goal earlier this year of traveling through Ireland with his golf clubs in hand.
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This past spring I finally got to do what four previous trips to Ireland didn’t afford me: I played golf.

The first courses on our itinerary, Claremorris and Westport, both in County Mayo, were good tests and very affordable compared to their more famous links cousins. Several holes on the back nine at Westport provided fine views of salt water and Croagh Patrick, the holy mountain.
Each day of the trip I hit some good shots, but it was the shots between the good shots that did me in, particularly the ones that led me up into the badlands of marram grass that line many of the fairways on links courses. I essentially became one of the goats we occasionally saw. The bright side is that I attained many more vista viewpoints than my playing partners, and those views were terrific.

Par 3 at Westport


Sometimes on the tee we had first to determine the direction in which to hit our drives. It’s easy to get disoriented on a links course and overlook a directional sign to the next tee. My scouting helped in that regard.

Getting Arnold Palmer's Autograph

I mentioned in an earlier post that I started playing golf when I was 10. That September, my Dad asked me if I wanted to see a golf tournament - see the professionals play. I said, "Sure," so we went to the 1959 Portland Open Invitational at the Portland (Oregon) Golf Club.

When we got there, we went straight to the range to watch the players warming up. There were caddies downrange, one for each golfer, because they had to provide their own balls back then and the caddies were out there picking them up. I was worried the caddies would get hit, but their player hit shot after shot right to them. Unbelievable.

The third tee was right next to the range, so we started following some group, I forget who was in it, and on the next hole, the second hole of tournament golf that I had ever seen, one of the guys made a hole-in-one. No kidding. What fun!

Maybe You Should Start Golf Over

Be honest. If you're not very good and not getting better, you know it. You don't have to tell me, you don't have to tell anyone else, and it's not a judgmental thing. But if you don't hit good shots very often, and you want to do better, what do you do? You take lessons, and practice, and play, and nothing changes, or maybe it changes a little, but not in the way you want it to.

Today I'm going to talk about how your entire approach to improving might be what is holding you back. There will be no swing tips here, no instructions on how to hit a new shot that will turn everything around, just a sit-down discussion on why starting over might be the best way to free you up to be the good golfer you believe you can be.

Why My Grandson Plays Golf Left-handed

When my sons were growing up, Michael Jordan was king of the world in sports. Everyone wanted to play basketball and latch on to his charisma. I tried to get my boys to try golf, and they gave it a half-hearted effort, but it was basketball all along. I tried.

Our first grandchild was born in 2000, when Jordan was still active, but his dominance was essentially over. I knew I could make a golfer if I played my cards right.

When he was three, we got the lad a golf set - a clear plastic bag with two plastic clubs with large clubheads and a plastic ball about as big as a baseball, designed for three-year-olds, that we used to play House Golf. The rules of House Golf are simple. You hit the ball at something, like a chair, and try to hit the chair. Hitting your playing partner accidentally, while not formally a part of the game, will happen unless attention is paid. You have unlimited mulligans and there is no par. Believe me, this is great fun.

There was one problem, though. He wasn't very good at it. He had his hands and arms all twisted up on the club, and his swing resembled something that I need a David Feherty quote to describe. Even hitting the ball was a triumph and that he appeared so uncoordinated that using a fork to feed himself might be dangerous didn't bother him because he was only three. He was having fun. Good enough.

It bothered me, though. No one, even a three-year-old, could be that bad at something so simple. Just swing the club a little bit and have the club hit the ball, but no go. He had to get this. The honor of the family's genetic code was at stake.

One day, the light flashed. The brilliant solution burst into my head and I knew it would work. I hadn't been paying enough attention to how he was holding the club. He was standing where a right-hander would stand, but his arms were twisted around to the other side. He was a left-hander trying to hit the ball right-handed! I went over to him, said, "Let's try something," picked him up and set him down on the left-handed side of the ball and said, "Now try it."

All of a sudden, his arms and hands were lined up and he hit the ball like he had been doing it all his life. The ball sailed cross the room. We had him hit again, and again. Same thing. I'm looking at a three-foot tall Sam Snead.

At this point you might be thinking, "Well, didn't you already know he was left-handed? Shouldn't this have been obvious?" No, it wasn't obvious, because he didn't use his left hand for anything. He picked up objects with his right hand, used his spoon (we were still shy about the fork) with his right hand, everything. And to this day he is right-handed in everything except golf. He even swung the bat in T-Ball right-handed. But golf is left-handed. Go figure.