I am really excited about a new class I’m teaching at Pinecrest this summer. It’s called “Never Golf Again?” and it’s the first class of a new series . . .
The class is for people who are bored with golf, sick of paying for lessons, or who have had bad experiences with their golf instructors. There will be no assigned books and no reading lists, but everyone will leave with a better understanding of golf and how to enjoy it more healthfully. The course will cover all aspects of the game: how to swing, how to swing on different courses, what equipment is best and why, and good strategies for making the game more fun. There will be an emphasis on stress management, so we can focus on things that are good for us rather than just getting through the day.
I am also going to teach a series of lectures on topics related to golf – things like the history of the game, statistics, politics of golf, and so on.**
I am very excited about this class and would love it if you would join me there!
The short answer, of course, is “No.” The longer answer is that if you want to find out how to get healthy, you should use the right kind of information. Information like this article on pinecones.
I am not an expert on golf. I am an expert on healthy living and getting outdoors. But I wanted to know what it was like to play a round of golf, so I looked up Pinecrest Golf Club in Atlanta (Georgia’s capital city). This is what I found:
1) An 18 hole course
2) Balls will be provided
3) Each person must bring his or her own clubs
4) You may bring a caddie for $10 per round (not per person) or you can pay $25 for a cart.
5) When you are finished playing with your group, the club will provide transportation back to your car (so-called “par” carts). There is no limit on how many times you may use this service. They will take care of all transportation costs and you will be responsible for all fees related to the use of the cart/clubs/booth rental.
6) There are no refunds for early departures if there are still open spots in your group (this
I recently did something I’ve never done before, and that’s play golf.
I wanted to find out whether it was really possible to enjoy golf at a distance. That is, I wanted to know whether it was possible to be a very good golfer without ever having to go near a golf course.
I figured there had to be some way of measuring the status of a golfer in this regard. Answering this question would let me know whether it was possible to be a truly great golfer without ever playing a round of golf. I was beginning to get excited about the prospect – after all, how cool would it be to be the world’s greatest golfer, but not have to actually do any golfing? —The problem with that premise is that getting good at golf takes time. The more time you put into practicing, the better you’ll get. And if you’re not willing to put in the time, then you won’t get very good at anything else as well – if only because what else does exist isn’t worth learning about. So my goal for this blog is not just for you to check out my blog and find out what a terrible golfer I am. Instead, I want you to read my blog and learn from me.
I’ve been playing golf as a hobby for almost 40 years. I’ve never had any serious injuries. But I’ve been plagued for years by nagging aches and pains in my left shoulder, neck, back, and knees. I have a lot of respect for people who golf well. They are extremely good at it. Yet my game has never come close to the level of their game.
If you want to play golf very well these days, it’s not enough to be good at golf. You have to practice like crazy, using all sorts of gadgets and techniques that were unimaginable a decade ago.
I think what’s going on is that the activity is getting harder and harder, so the amount of practice that’s needed to get any kind of improvement has to become larger and larger. And there’s no way to get better unless you do this heavy training—or even if you do, it will only improve your game at a snail’s pace.
When I play golf or go hiking, I enjoy myself a lot more when I’m with someone else. When I play golf, I generally get bored half-way through the game, and want to stop. If I’m hiking, it’s not so bad. But if I’m on my own, the whole experience is ruined.
The physical world has a lot of particles that you can’t pick up with your hands, and a lot you can’t see with your eyes. And then there are the invisible things: things that are not particles and not light enough to be seen with the unaided eye, but which nonetheless move around in their own ways.
Whether you’re looking at terrain or at plant life or both, there is a lot of data out there. There is a lot we can learn by studying it. But we have trouble learning it where we’ve never looked before.
We’re used to computers doing this kind of work for us, but they don’t yet do it as well as people do. We’ve got lots of great new tools for doing geology, for example; but if you want to learn about how something grows, the way the best teachers used to do it was basically to go and look at it yourself.
The world contains a lot of things we’ve never looked at before—and many that no one has looked at for long enough to make much sense of them. On the one hand, we know so little about what’s happening around us that we need every bit of information we can get. On the other hand, there’s so much out there
When I was little, my mother would take me to a place in the woods where there was a pond, with a little dock. There were ducklings all over the place, and she told me that if I went out to see them, I wouldn’t be afraid of them because they didn’t bite.
I’m not sure why she told me that — maybe it was because she was scared of them herself or maybe she just wanted to make me feel better. But one day, I went out and looked at the ducks, and they weren’t cute at all. They were mean, they hissed at me and ran away when I got close to them. And when I turned around, there were two huge wolves sitting there watching the ducks.
This exact same thing happened to me this morning on my walk into work. I saw a fox (no relation), and it looked at me like it was going to eat me. But then it ran away as soon as I started to move towards it. And then another one took its place, jumped up on the table next to me and started watching the ducks.”