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From the hearth: Excerpt of a letter entitled Deal with your fears before you play, written by Bob Duval to his older brother, Jim, also a teaching pro.
March 6
Dear Jimmy,
Ouch - tied for 32nd today in the Royal Caribbean. Forgotten what happens when you don't play for a long time - I man really play, not just play around. But it's nice down here in Miami. Shari's with me, and I'm back for another tournament. If I never win another one I already know what I accomplished. Sometimes I get into a conversation with one of the guys about what took me so long to get here - you know, why didn't I play the regular tour when I was younger? They mean the question as a compliment, I believe, but I can truly say I never ask it to myself, and not because I never wondered.
First of all, I know the answer, and for all the things we went through as a family - mine, not ours growing up - all the heartache, I would never have done something else, been someone else. We are who we are. You can't play golf pretending you're someone else, and you sure can't live your life that way. "We play the ball down," can't you just hear Dad saying that to us? But he was right, and not just about the rules of golf, the breaks of the game. The struggle, all the effort to learn and prepare, and then the seeming ease when it comes - that is the game.
And then, if you're in a divot, or behind a tree (like I was a few times today!), you play the shot. I can never figure out people who want to change a lie, take a free drop, pretend they don't know the stroke-and-distance rule when they've just gone out of bounds. I don't mean guys out here, though you hear an occasional story, but no one lasts very long. But just the average player, whatever their skill level. There's no rule I'm aware of that says that above such and such a handicap the rules don't apply. Isn't that what makes it golf?
How'd I get started on that? I meant to tell you about the iguanas they have here. There was one on the 12th hole, a par three that must have been 5 or 6 feet long.
I'll call later,
Bobby
From: letters to a young golfer by Bob Duval with Carl Vigeland, Basic Books (2002). Reprinted without permission.
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Deal with your fears before you play, written by Bob Duval
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