Wednesday, June 4, 2008

The Day of 100 Putts

It sounds like either the title of a melodramatic old-time science fiction movie (e.g., The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Day of the Triffids ) or possibly a follow-up to Wilson Pickett's still-supercool-40-years-later Land of 1000 Dances, but it is neither of those things. (By the way,while I'm thinking about it, regular people can only wish they were ever as cool as Wilson Pickett on their best day here in 2008...by 2048, forget it. You'll be lucky to be as cool as this guy.)

Anyway, The Day of 100 Putts is my new putting practice routine. Simply put, my whole concept is that I will hit 100 putts every day. How can I do such a thing? Allow this picture that I am about to take to explain it:
With this humble collection of putter, balls, and practice cup, I have a plan to become the greatest putter in the world. Or at least in this part of the Goldstar office.

Mike Ellis, of Shadow Ridge and Faldo Golf Institute fame, pointed out that 43% of golf shots are putts, yet most people avoid practicing putts like they avoid Baked Potato Chips when Double-Dipped-in-Grease Chips are available. The way they avoid ordering fruit when fries are available. The way they avoid paying down the balance on their credit cards when a low minimum interest-only option is available.

You get the idea. They don't do it.

The problem though is that I don't exactly have a lot of time in my work day. In fact, if I don't wrap this post up in a couple minutes, I'm going to have to let it drop mid-sentence. You wouldn't have closure and that would probably ruin your day.

So you can see the problem.

The solution of course is to integrate it all into my work day. As CEO of Goldstar, a big part of my duties involve me staring thoughtfully at the ceiling and devising ways to make our customers happy and make anyone who dares to oppose us unhappy. Frequently, that process looks like this:

So since I want to beat Tiger in that upcoming one-on-one world championship match and since everything Fox News ever says is true, I came up with a plan: putting and thinking.

Since it's not exactly hard on the noodle to hit a ball across a carpet, I have changed from Thinking While Slumping to Thinking While Putting (both are illegal in Mississippi, but hey.)




That process looks more like this:



















(BTW, no critique on my form. Clearly, I'm posing for a staged picture.)

10 balls at a go. 10 times a day. In 27.4 short years, that's a million putts, which puts us right up to 2035.

I bet Wilson Pickett, God rest him, never did that!

1 comment:

Tommy Mac said...

But, can you putt through the wall and land at the foot of my trash bin??? That would be a heck of a putt.