Free Refills

I had an interesting conversation about a month ago. A woman from my neighborhood was watching me practice my golf swing in the park, and she struck up a conversation. She introduced herself and told me a bit about herself and her family and their relationship to golf: her husband had played professionally and now ran a local golf course; both of her daughters had played at the collegiate level; one of them was now a teaching pro at another local course; she herself had been a pretty good golfer at one point. She asked about my practice, and I told her what I was doing. She clearly enjoyed hearing about it. And she replied, quite casually, “It’s a tough sport to figure out on your own.”

I have been thinking about that comment for a few weeks now. I think it’s really interesting. It seems pretty obvious on the face of it, but the more I examine it, the more I see.

First of all, as I try to improve my game, I’m not trying to figure it out on my own–I have Jerry and all his knowledge of centering and kinesiology to help me. I have my own eyes. I have all the video I could ever want of the best players in the world. And I have my own practice of centering and the body-focus it engenders to teach me the “rightness” or “truth” of my swing.

Furthermore, right now I’m actually operating in a pretty specific problem space: I am trying to unlock my power. A powerful shot arises from a swing that flows from core. That’s the only way it can work. So the answer will be found in feeling my way to unrestricted movement in the core. Which is to say that right now I know what I need to be practicing.

And finally, as I’ve been practicing, I’ve discovered a very important piece that most outside instructors just aren’t equipped to deal with: a major block to flow doesn’t manifest in sport alone. The way I restrict my power is not limited to just my golf swing. The problem runs far, far deeper than that. Somewhere, a long time ago, I learned that letting my power flow in my life didn’t feel safe, and so I put the brakes on. And it’s affected me in all aspects of my life ever since. This is a sensitive space.

There will come times in this process when I won’t know what I don’t know, and the technical knowledge of an expert will serve me well. But there are also times, as now, when I know both what to practice and the energetic repercussions of that practice. I’m not stuck or confused. I’m not saying that no one out there is equipped to help me, but when things are flowing on their own, why risk muddying the waters?

Some days, I just want to declare my independence from this whole writing thing. Put it aside and not think about word counts and deadlines. Focus, like a good American, on burgers and beer.

But I keep my promises. I’ve learned to do that, at the very least. I said I would publish, so I publish.

(And then afterwards, I can declare my independence from any further work. Afterwards, I can focus on burgers and beer.)

Last week I finished my piece about the value of coaching by asking if Jerry and I could speed up our learning process in golf with some good outside instruction. In answer, I asserted that the definition of “good instruction” is that it helps you learn more quickly. But from that perspective, what makes instruction “good?”

Before I go any further, let me share an observation that’s driven our approach to this endeavor that will strike many people as startling or even simply wrong: the golf swing isn’t actually all that difficult. The ball is sitting on the ground, not moving. We have a club in our hands. The problem we’re trying to solve is, how do we move the body so as to generate a fast-moving clubhead that’s traveling straight along the aim-line at impact, with a clubface that’s square to the direction of travel? It’s really not that complicated. A modest knowledge of kinesiology and physics should get us, more or less, to the right answer. Furthermore, we have dozens of fantastic instructors teaching by example on TV every week, which makes learning even simpler: other people have already figured this out! We only need to emulate them.

Another observation: I had a fair amount of instruction in golf when I was a kid, and yet I was terrible golfer. So why is it that I’ve made more progress in the last year of practicing with Jerry than I did in years of instruction as a kid? Is it simply that I’m older and better at figuring things out?

No, it’s not. There have been periods in my adult life in which I practiced golf. I just never got anywhere.

The difference between then and now is that Jerry taught me about centering. Centering, and the attention to the body that it brings, is what was missing all along.

By combining centering, knowledge of kinesiology and energy flow in the body, good observation of top performers in the field, and a practice of feeling the body accurately, we’ve made great strides in less than a year (as Jerry pointed out on Tuesday). If the measure of good instruction is that you learn quickly, well, how much better do we need our instruction to be?

No. 772

If you are a sports fan, by now you have probably heard the story, but you haven’t heard it from me, and I can’t not talk about it, it is far too wonderful. Marcus Willis, 25 years old, a teaching pro at a club in central England, ranked 772 in the world, won three straight matches at a pre-qualifier for English players (Wimbledon being the English Open), then three more matches in qualifiers to earn a spot in the main draw and his first ever match in any ATP Tour event, much less a Grand Slam. Is that improbable enough? No? Well then how about this: He played his first-round match of the main draw against Ricardas Berankis, a player ranked some 718 spots ahead of him–and won in straight sets. Is that enough to make the story magical? No? Well, then there’s this: with that win–Willis to this point undefeated for his career at the Tour level–he earned himself a match against the most popular player in the game, possibly the greatest player who ever lived, Roger Federer.

How do you begin to imagine the feeling? From being one more gifted but undermotivated player, bouncing around the challenger and club level of the sport, staying just involved enough to still have your dream alive to the point that you say, “Sure, I’ll enter that tournament, what do I have to lose?” to playing a match against the greatest of all time at the greatest tournament of all at the most famous court in all of tennis? One day you are an unknown, and then you go on an improbable six-match winning streak, enough to earn you a nice payday, far better than the $292 you had earned year-to-date, and then you win one more match, more improbable still, and then two days later you get to walk into a sold-out Centre Court, against a superstar, and have people cheering for you. You would feel, I think, like you could walk on water.

But then, cruelly, you can’t get carried away with that feeling, because all of those people cheering for you are cheering for the moment as well, and in this moment they are there to see a tennis match, and you are a professional tennis player (despite having only ever lost money, net, in pursuing your career), and so you have to ground yourself enough to play tennis, and play tennis well, and try, improbable as it may be, to win. That is what you are here to do. It’s not like you won a lottery. You worked to get here.

And Marcus Willis did a wonderful job of balancing the moment and the job, considering. He was so nervous that he missed volleys during warm-up, and laughed. He threw his arms up, as though in victory, just for making it through the warm-up. But he came to play.

And to his enormous credit, he played to win. His game was idiosyncratic–slice forehands, unusual lobs, tricky angles–but he came with a game plan. Sure, first-set nerves doomed him to a bagel. Reasonable enough, don’t you think? He lost the first game of the second set on Federer’s serve. But on his next serve, he held. The crowd cheered like he’d won the match.

He played with Federer the rest of the way. He held serve except for once in each remaining set. It may be true that Federer took his foot off the accelerator after the first set–one has to think that not even as great a competitor as Federer wants to triple-bagel the best story in the tournament–but it was hardly the most simple, straightforward win of Federer’s career. Willis did not simply roll over.

By making the second round, he earned £47,000, enough to allow him to compete on the tour for maybe a year; and 45 ranking points, which, well, isn’t exactly going to launch him into the top 50. But perhaps he’s such a story that he’ll get some wild-card entries into other tournaments. With his play, he showed he could survive at tour level. With his personality, he showed that the tour would be better for him being there.

Every day that I work, I have to start. Before I start I’m not working, and then later I am working, and for a certain amount of time in between–a moment? more?–I’m starting to work.

Starting is hard. At least it is for me. It’s something I do every day, so why am I not good at it?

What I always envision when I’m not working is that I’ll simply go to the computer and turn it on and start. And that never ever ever ever ever happens. Even in the best case, when I don’t dive into email or web surfing or god forbid a game before I get myself in front of my text editor, I always stare at that blinking cursor for a while before I … go and do something else.

Could it be that starting is a skill, something that can be improved on with practice?

I’ve been talking a lot about how we as sports fans seek the remarkable in the sports we watch. The remarkable things become a part of us, we carry them with us–but sometimes details slip our minds until prompted.

The other day, I was cleaning up space on my DVR and found that I’d saved the Netherlands-Costa Rica match from the 2014 World Cup. I couldn’t for the life of me remember why, but I figured there had to be a reason, probably a great goal or something, so I fast-forwarded through it. No goals. 0-0 at the end of extra time. On to penalty kicks. Wait a minute, I said. I remember this match. This was the match that the Dutch dominated, doing everything but scoring–they put several shots off the post or crossbar. And then in the 120th minute, just as extra time was about to end, Dutch coach Louis Van Gaal substituted first-choice keeper Jasper Cillessen, sending on Tim Krul, ostensibly their penalty specialist. I’d never seen anything like it. According to the announcers, Krul had only saved two of twenty PKs he’d faced in the last two seasons, but on this day, he certainly believed in himself. He got in the face of each of the Costa Rican kick takers, clearly talking trash. He indicated that he knew which way they were going to go with their kicks, and apparently he did. He faced five kicks, diving the right way all five times. He saved two of them. His teammates didn’t miss, and the Netherlands advanced, 4-3. Remarkable.

(Interestingly, and perhaps ironically, the Dutch finished their semifinal match against Argentina at 0-0 as well. This time Van Gaal had used all three substitutes. In the shootout, it was the Argentine keeper, Sergio Romero, who made two saves. Cillessen made none. Argentina advanced to the final, 4-2.)

I’m still working on my big French Open piece–which will be awesome, don’t you worry–but in the meantime, today’s the first day of Wimbledon. Wimbledon is my favorite tournament. I gotta talk a little about Wimbledon.

Men’s Side

Novak Djokovic: The obvious questions: Can he make it five Slams in a row? Can anyone even push him? He certainly looks invincible in Slams right now. It doesn’t look like anyone can beat him and it doesn’t look like he’ll beat himself. If that turns out to be true, then I guess the only remaining question is how many sets he will lose.

Andy Murray: His first Slam since re-hiring Ivan Lendl as coach. The French wasn’t very long ago, let’s remember, and Andy played a great tournament, finishing runner-up, which is about as good as could be expected, considering Novak’s level right now. He even avoided his usual patterns of wasting energy by falling into negativity. Can Lendl make any real difference in such a short timeframe? As crowd favorite and the justified 2-seed, we should expect him in the finals, where he’ll run into the invincible cyborg, Novak Djokovic.

Roger Federer: Despite very little tennis this season, he’s still the 3rd seed. His results in the warm-up tournaments at Stuttgart and Halle were okay but not great. He’s almost certainly not in full match fitness, so it’s silly to imagine he’ll reproduce the quality that he showed at last year’s Wimbledon. Given all that, it’s hard to imagine he won’t slip up somewhere before the semis (at which point he’d face the invincible cyborg, Novak Djokovic.) If that’s right, whom will he lose to? Nishikori in the quarters? That seems possible. His section of the draw (prior to the quarters) contains Monfils, Gilles Simon, Dimitrov and Dolgopolov. A Federer at full strength would easily handle any of them, but he can’t possibly be at full strength, can he?

The Stanimal: After a so-so season so far this year–a couple of wins in lesser tournaments and a semifinal appearance at the French being the highlights–how far will he go here? He’ll play Murray in the semis if they both make it that far, but a major stumbling block could be the potential quarterfinal match-up against in-form Dominic Thiem.

Kei Nishikori: My favorite player after Roger. A match-up against hard-serving Sam Groth in the first round can’t be be ignored. Still, given that Federer is unlikely to be at his best, if Nishikori plays up to his potential he could be around to challenge Novak in the semis.

Milos Raonic: Can we still call him of the next generation at 25? I think we can. He’s still clearly improving. He’s also fun to watch. Seems like a really nice guy. He’s Canadian, after all. Some tough potential match-ups in his section–Anderson, Sock and Goffin.

Dominic Thiem: His first Slam as a top-10 seed. After his break-out Slam at Roland Garros, a lot more eyes will be on the 22 year old. He beat Federer in the semis at the Mercedes Cup on his way to hoisting the trophy, but lost in the semis at Halle to his first round opponent here, Florian Mayer. Assuming he gets through that, his second and third round matches should be relatively straightforward, but in the fourth he’s likely to face either 10-seed Tomas Berdych or–more juicily–Sasha Zverev, in a replay of their thrilling third-round match at the French.

The Young Guns: Let’s call Thiem, Goffin, Zverev, Coric and Kyrgios the exciting up-and-comers. I already spoke about Thiem. Goffin: Can his roadrunner-like game translate to grass? (The potential third-round match against Kevin Anderson should tell us a lot.) Zverev: Tough draw. Berdych in the third, Thiem in the forth, Stan in the quarters if he makes it that far. Coric: Karlovic, always fearsome on grass, in the first; Cilic in the third; Nishikori in the fourth. He’s not going past that, I bet.

Kyrgios gets special mention. He’s been the most hyped of any of these guys. He has all the physical gifts of a future Slam winner, but his head doesn’t seem to be on straight. How far before he flames out this time around? His first-round opponent, Radek Stepanek, took Andy Murray to five sets at Roland Garros, but doesn’t seem likely to have a game that translates well enough to grass to pose much of a problem. He’s likely to face mercurial Dustin Brown in the second round–Dustin Brown who beat Rafa here last year. That’s no simple match. And then a likely match against Feliciano Lopez in the third round. Should he manage that, he’d probably face Andy Murray in the fourth. Making it that far would justify his 15 seed. I certainly see him doing no better than that.

The Americans: I’m the wrong person to ask. The thing I like best about Isner is that he bounces the ball from back to front between his legs as part of his service ritual. Other than that I find his game dull as dishwater. Jack Sock is about as interesting as the eponymous piece of clothing. My favorite American player is probably Donald Young, because he fights hard and because he’s not a big guy with a big serve and because he wears Boast clothing, the logo of which is a Japanese maple leaf but looks for all the world like a marijuana leaf, which clearly is viewed as a feature, not a bug, by their marketing department, which made me laugh at the US Open last year and has me laughing still.

Women’s Side

Serena: Can she finally match Steffi’s record? If she doesn’t win here, she’s likely to drop out of the number one spot in the rankings. Wow, right? Plenty of tough players in Serena’s side of the draw, including a possible third-round match-up against Kristina Mladenovic.

Garbiñe Muguruza: The finalist here last year, and the woman who three weeks ago beat–truly beat–Serena in the French Open final. We’ve been waiting for someone to rise up and become a serious rival to Serena. Could it be Mugu? She’s under major pressure. She’s young and her mental game comes and goes. But for the first time in a long time, a potential 1-2 final looks genuinely possible and genuinely intriguing.

Sam Stosur: I like Stosur. I like her grit. She was a semi-finalist at the French. Clay is her best surface, though. Will she survive all the way to her potential fourth-round match against Mugu?

Venus Williams: The 8-seed. Still classy. Always classy. No idea how far she’ll go, but she’s always gracious. Would be fun to see her survive to play Mugu in the quarters.

Johanna Konta: The great British hope. A tough match against Puig in the first round, Eugenie Bouchard possibly in the second, Cibulkova, maybe, in the third, and then Radwanska in the fourth. That’s a tough road. But England needs something to cheer itself up right now.

The Ladies’ Young Guns: Mugu we’ve already mentioned. Bencic is the seven seed, which doesn’t seem to be justified by her play so far this year. (Too many injuries, unlikely to be fit enough.) Madison Keys, the nine seed and ascending, has a possible fourth-round match against either Simona Halep or French Open breakout Kiki Bertens.

Radwanska, Kerber, Halep, Vinci: the three through six seeds, and part of the reason I call the women’s top ten a bunch of also-rans. How surprised would I be if none of them made the quarters? Unsurprised. Ladies: prove me wrong.

Flavia Pennetta: As I just said, too much of the women’s game is comprised of a bunch of also-rans right now. Pennetta hasn’t played a match since she won the US Open, and still she’s the 15th-ranked player in women’s tennis.

Other

How many times will you hear the word(?) Brexit during the telecasts?