Golfers. There are none in my immediate
family. I mean zilch, diddly-squat,
zero. I should know. I’ve done the research. I don’t mean a quick flip on
Ancestry.com for a feverish five minutes.
I mean the kind of research that ended in two books and many tales of
ado about something – but no golfers.
I have no idea why I might have got this rogue gene but, Divine
Intervention or not, someone had a great laugh when my blueprint was
written.
I like to be clear about
things. I get confused very easily
– another laugh at my expense on the part of the Blueprint Maker – so from
get-go let’s put it out there that I am a rubbish golfer. With attitude. I don’t think I started out with
attitude. Those that know me from my
start line in life testify to the fact that I once was that shy child with big,
blue questioning eyes. Nowadays,
I’m not so shy, my eyes are still blue and I question everything, loud and
long. And along the way, I’ve
acquired attitude. It’s a
protective mechanism and necessary when you have a brain that flights itself
into confused mode at the drop of a hat.
So when I notice
something quirky about myself – well, I’ve noticed a lot of quirky things about
myself but I largely ignore them as they wax and wane according to the phases
of the moon but this is a consistent quirk and it is related to my ability to
play golf – I sit up and take heed.
It keeps me out of confused mode and fulfils my need to keep things
clear. In a nutshell then,
whenever I watch golf on telly and absorb the players’ techniques and
approaches, I go out and play a better game immediately afterwards. I thought this was Divine Intervention
again, having a laugh at my expense, but the pure coincidence became an
observable constant and it happened every time. I knew it was so because, whether I had had a lesson and
done my stint at the practice range or not, if I didn’t watch the pros on tour,
there was a noticeable slump.
That was enough to get
my attention.
Could this be true?
Or just a load of old
twiddlefart on my part?
Think about it: every
great piece of scientific research began in a theory and every great theory was
begotten in empirical observation and every empirical observation was born in a
“Ooh! I wonder if that could be true” moment and if you have followed my logic
in this sentence thus far, you really do read my blog. Thank you and well done.
Intrigued and
inquisitive but hugely ill-informed – that was how I would describe myself on the
subject of mirror imaging. But
then I fell into the clutches of a certain man. Let me introduce Giacomo Rizzolatti, MD. He’s a neuroscientist and, together
with his mates at the University of Parma, he has been hamming up on an
interesting little nerve cell called a mirror neuron.
Imagine it like this:
You are walking along
the fairway. Suddenly, there’s a
shout of “Fore left” from somewhere off to your right. You duck but your playing partner looks
round to ascertain whose “left” is in question. Too late! That miscreant
ball has smacked him right in the cornerstones of the cathedral of his manhood
and he keels over. That’s the way
of errant golf balls but, automatically, you clutch the area of the south
chancel of your own basilica and you feel his pain.
Or you are armchair-watching
Mickelson and Stenson in that epic battle down the home straits of this year’s Open
at Troon. The tension builds, your breathing rate changes, your heart
accelerates. You’re in the telly
now, feeling it, living the adrenaline rush, steadying your nerves, releasing
your tightly clutched hand, stop, check, practice swing, you’re on the
eighteenth, stop, check, practice swing, walk away. You can feel your heartbeat banging on your eardrums. Tachycardic drumbeats. You walk back, stand over your putter, you
drive home the winning putt and you raise your fist to punch the sky.
You’ve got it – you’ve
just let your mirror neuron out to play - only it wasn’t actually you who
lifted the Claret Jug or juggled with your nobbled knobs, much though you lived the in-the-moment experience.
These sort of gut-level
experiences have occupied the minds of psychologists, neuroscientists and philosophers
as they puzzled over why we understand so instinctively the thoughts, feelings
and intentions of others with such immediacy.
And that’s where we
return to the lovely Professor Rizzolatti – who, incidentally, is a
double-ganger for Einstein – because he is the man who discovered mirror
neurons in the frontal and parietal cortex of the macaque monkey. These mirror neurons brain cells
respond equally whether we are performing the task or witnessing others
performing the same action.
I’m not even a talented
carrot in God’s own Irish potato field but I know my onions when I find them and, in this piece of research, I had found my proof. Forget your Golf Biometrical fitting, your Garmin Approach
S2 GPS golf watch, your FitBit Surge or your Blast Motion Golf Replay
analyzer. All I needed now was a
fitting of an AR headset filled with the re-runs of quality professional matches
and I could take off on a tour de force on the course, mimicking the best
players.
And if the effect of
carrying a headset around with me for eighteen holes proves a bit of an asinine
job, I am planning on roping in James.
He’s an engineer par excellence.
That’s Sir James Dyson, “the” engineer. If there’s a man on this planet that could invent a lightweight
piece of kit that could incorporate a golf cap and an AR headset, he’s the
man. While he’s at it, he might
even be able to invent a set of clubs that could propel themselves in the
perfect swing-thing trajectory and then I could play the perfect round of golf.
Sir James, I am a willing guinea pig. I know you can work miracles. You're the only man on this earth who has turned my son in to an ardent hooverholic (Yup, I think I have invented a new word) with your Dyson V6. He thinks he's eight again and is ramping it up with that cordless "Luke Skywalker Lightsaber" lookalike vacuum cleaner. His other half is delighted.
And finally:
Merry Christmas to all
of you who have taken the time to read my blogs throughout the year. I am grateful for your support and
following. To 2017 and the new
golf season…
