MIRROR, MIRROR on the wall, who is the worst golfer of them all?

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…