Getting in the swing

Knocking a small ball into a gopher hole, not once but 18 times, seems to be the sport of golf, no? Natalie Soh finds out it's much more than that.


Golf is the game that drives perfectly sane people to wake up at unearthly hours of the morning just to hit a ball into tiny holes all over a huge manicured park.

Prior to Getting Started, golf was hardly one of my top sports of choice - sure I knew that people got hooked on the game, I just couldn't understand why.

So I approached my first lesson with Mr Paul Pohler, an American

pro with almost 40 years of experience with some residual bemusement.

Mr Pohler, 60, who has trained thousands of students in his years as a pro, started off the lesson by warning that the learning journey ahead would be "a long and hard one".

"Straight off, I tell my students that it will be tough! Mainly because the game is so mechanically counter-intuitive, and many get very frustrated when they are first picking up the game," he said with a twinkle in his eye.

Great.

First I had to learn how to hold the club properly - which involved curling my right pinky around my left index finger. Then it was the stance: knees bent, with your bottom positioned almost in a permanent gentle squat. And the arms are straight out.

Then the counter-intuitive stuff started: For a right hander, it is the left arm that leads the club to contact the ball. Almost like a pendulum, the wrists, arms, hips and knees work in motion to drive the ball up and away.

Theoretically speaking, of course.

For a rank beginner like myself, there was the slight problem of aim: the first few swings left the ball completely unscathed.

And when I did hit it, rather than soaring up into the sky, it simply rolled pathetically a couple of yards from the tee.

Mr Pohler explained: "We want to hit that ball right in the centre at first. Hit it on top, called "topping", and it nullifies any kind of topspin, so the ball simply rolls on the ground."

If the contact is too far at the bottom of the ball, it's called a "pop up" - there is so much spin that the ball travels high up but not very far.

If the ball is "sliced" - it goes right, if it is "hooked", it goes left. These techniques are of course useful on the golf course itself as the golfer tries to angle his shots to hit the green where the hole is, but not quite when they are completely unintentional.

My second lesson was slightly better. With help from the extremely patient Mr Pohler, I was actually getting contact with the golf ball and it was travelling up and away from the tee. He guided every movement so I could hit that dimpled ball right in the middle.

A solid hit or a good contact where the ball flies straight and true towards your target feels smooth. When a player feels vibrations in the club, where there is discomfort from the club shifting - that's when you know you've hit it wrongly somewhere.

As predicted, it was turning out to be extremely challenging - but unexpectedly fun.

Mr Pohler would also teach me the basics of the various club selections - essentially the lower the number on the club, the farther the distance it will hit. This is down to a combination of shaft lengths, the degree of loft and varying weights.

But golf, as I quickly realised, involves a lot more mental strength and discipline than I had anticipated. I had to constantly think and challenge myself to keep repeating the same correct mechanical motions to get that swing right.

As Ben Hogan, who played the PGA tour in the 40s and 50s, said, 90 per cent of the game is played from the neck up.

And on the golf course, even more mental acuity is called for. A golfer has to analyse everything - from the distance he has to hit (hence the choice of a club), the obstacles on the course and the undulations on the green, right to the wind speed which might affect the trajectory of the ball.

Mr Pohler has this to say to would-be beginners: "Get yourself a patient and experienced coach, but more importantly, remember that golf is a game, and a game is meant to be fun: so have fun doing it!"