There’s something new in town. Golf simulators allow one to practice on a driving range or to play one of over 2,800 digital replicas of real golf courses. Weather is no longer a problem. One team can play against another in-house or even internationally online. A player can see the analytics of ball trajectory, speed, and distance, the swing speed and more.
Since it’s been decades, I was primarily interested in the practice tees. I was nervous. There was a good chance that this once-upon-a-time low handicap golfer would spend some time whiffing the ball. There was little chance that anything resembling earlier abilities would be revealed.
A couple of days is all it took to show me a few things.
- I could still swing a club without hurting myself.
- It was still possible to make pure club to ball contact.
- A decent, flexible range of motion was still possible.
- A subjective ‘good shot’ to ‘bad shot’ ratio was consistent at 80%.
- There was about a 30% loss of distance from those earlier times.
The other day, the system was down and troubleshooting proved futile. This wasn’t the first time, and although I am reasonably comfortable with the use of software, I was unable to figure out why the screen was unresponsive.
Several pieces of software combine with some expensive hardware to provide results. From what I could tell, the launch monitor uses cameras and radar to capture various data points. Algorithms translate this information adding it to the course simulator that includes programed wind speed and direction, the angle of the ball’s lie, distance to the hole, and more. Before the player finishes the swing follow-through, calculations have projected a correct visual on the screen.
The type and analysis of these metrics is astounding. The measurements include ball speed, swing speed, swing angle, club face at impact, ball spin, distance traveled in air and to the final resting place. Before striking the ball, windspeed, sun location, topographic tilts, distance remaining, club suggestions, and whether golf spikes are tied properly are displayed. Well, that last one is just to make a point.
On this day, I had none of that. Nothing about my shoes, nothing about anything else. I was frustrated. I have been trying to use some of these metrics to see improvements necessary to correct loss of distance. I might just as well quit and in fact, I walked away from the tee several times.
Self-talk screamed, “Enough. I’m out of here!” “No, just stay and hit a few more balls,” my calmer voice suggested. I agree but soon I’m looking for the exit once again.
One side of me says, “QUIT! Go get some cake.”. The other side replies, “Hey. Stick around. Just hit a few more.” Let’s just say a compromise was reached. I did not eat cake.
There seems to be a common aversion to embracing delayed benefits when the expected ideal seems disappointing. However, the lack of perfection does not demand immediate rejection.
The thing behind the thing is still valid: Exercising muscles, stretching, flexibility, and range of motion remain. I never started this revival expecting my relationship with club and ball to resemble what it was decades ago. I have even admitted that playing a real-life golf course is probably not in my future. Situational reflections looked like this:
- The simulator is not working but you have a huge screen in front of you and adequate headroom to swing a club and hit a golf ball.
- The metrics are not available, but you’ve played enough golf in your life to ‘feel’ a good shot. You can tell when hitting a ball center mass. You can feel the lift of the ball and approximate the direction. You’re kind of a human-based simulator.
- You don’t know what the ball speed is when leaving the club head, you don’t know whether the swing arc is correct or even if the angle of the clubhead at impact was aligned perfectly. But you never knew those statistics when playing the Hillcrest Golf Course either.
- It is less fun when the simulator is not working. But the thing behind the thing still applies and provides substantial benefits, especially at my age.
Now here’s the point. It seems that in our digital age, we become very accustomed to the ‘full experience’ provided by technology. I’m not sure why this happens, but it seems that the moment we see what technology can do for us, we demand it. It becomes our ‘right’, so to speak. We adjust to the ideal and decide we are at once entitled to the full range of possibilities. Entitlement does not realize that just moments ago, we didn’t even know these possibilities existed.
In awe of the range of information calculated for my practice sessions, it seems that I adopted the attitude of entitlement. I was owed this information!
However, my reflections revealed something important. Honestly, I wasn’t there to rejuvenate my golf game or to somehow learn to be that successful player of days gone by.
I was there to remember that feeling of a shot well played and those youthful days of glory.
I was there to bring that joy into the present while exercising shoulders, hips, back, arms, legs, grip, and core. By quitting, these benefits were reduced to zero.
Demanding the newly discovered technological advances has effectively removed the benefits of exercise and just as importantly, extinguished memories that produce joy. Choosing entitlement rights has deprived me of joyful living.
The broken golf simulator provided lessons significantly more important than the immediate results of a traveling golf ball on a flat screen. I was taught to pay attention to the thing beneath the thing. I was instructed to appreciate the upside of an underlying benefit. I discovered the downside of technological privilege.
I came away with an understanding that joyful living is far greater than demanded entitlement.
Find that thing behind the thing. Use that to keep a joyful heart, especially when things don’t go as planned. Keep on keeping on. Some would even say, "Keep your eye on the ball."
* * *
“Who has impeded your progress and kept you from obeying the truth? You were off to such a good start. I know for certain the pressure isn’t coming from God. He keeps calling you to the truth.” Galatians 5:7 (The Voice)
