Was It David or Goliath?

To hear dad tell it you’d have thought you were right there in the gallery. It was 1932 and dad was playing for the Tacoma amateur golf championship. He was a 17 year old wisp of a youth about 5’ 10” tall and around 145 pounds. Definitely not the kind of guy that made others shake in their boots. But one thing was certain, he could play golf. His drives and irons, from what I remember from my youth, both would shoot off the club with that beautiful sound of the club face hitting the ball squarely only to seem to catch a cloud about ¾ of the way out which would gently lift the ball further in the air just before heading down to land softly where he intended – such precision; such artistry.

There was an air about dad when he stepped on the golf course. It was as if he owned it. Wherever we seemed to land in life, nothing changed that. In golf he was king and everybody knew it.

It was an overcast day in the Pacific Northwest and dad had reached the final match of the city championship. His opponent was a seasoned veteran of the event and was about 15 years his senior. But dad had spent several hours the previous evening mapping out his strategy after walking the course earlier that day and he was prepared. In his mind this guy could have been Bobby Jones and it wouldn’t have mattered. His focus was on the game-plan not the opponent.

Now the media, of course, had a different picture of the event. Almost a David and Goliath type image since dad’s opponent, although only a couple of inches taller, was much more mature in stature - definitely man against boy. There was respect for dad’s game since he had won every match to this point, but this was going to be the real defining moment. This was where the “kid” was going to get his lesson.

Dad’s strategy which he diligently hand wrote out on a small pad of paper hole by hole had him attacking the first three fairways and greens since those were holes that played favorably into his ball flight strength. 4, 5, 6, and 7 were back up the hill and dad knew that with his opponent’s length, he would be hitting short irons on the approach. So dad focused on position to give himself the best angle to take advantage of his pitch and run. (There was nobody better from 150 yards in) The objective was to be at least 1-up after three and then hold even or better through 7. Eight and nine were a short par 3 and par 4 which favored neither player. The back side was going to be where this thing was won or lost.

Dad knew that he must focus on his game and his game alone. If he played the course according to his strategy and stuck to his plan he knew that if he was on he would be right there come 17 and 18. Each tee he would step to the side and pull out his Game-Plan and review what he intended to do on that hole and then stick to it. Like he said “it kept me focused on the task and everything else took care of itself”.

By the time they reached the 15th hole, dad was 3-up with 4 holes to go. His strategy had him hitting a drive down the left hand side of the fairway to a landing area about 255 yards from the tee. This gave him a perfect angle with a flat lie to the green on this 385 yard par 4 which dog-legged sharply to the right. From there he hit a beautiful 9 iron that left him only 8 feet just below the pin with a slight left to right break for the birdie that clinched the 1932 Tacoma Amateur championship.

This was only the beginning for dad. Although he contracted Rheumatoid Arthritis in his legs by the time he was 20 and had to learn to walk all over again, dad went on to add the Meadow Park club championship in Tacoma, twice the Riverside club championship in Chehalis, WA, the Lewis County Amateur Championship as well as 20 other amateur events.

Article Source: http://www.bluearticles.com

Article by Jeff Gustafson - the creator of the Pocket Pro Personal Game-Plan and Strategy System

www.the-sixth-man.com

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