Polarity

It was a nice get away over the weekend.  Though on the surface things do not always seem as they appear?  My get away was precluded by some mental work for the last 2 weeks.


My focus has been on the topic of Polarity.  Everything has the opposites; there are two sides to everything.  Heat and cold are identical in nature the differences being merely a matter of degrees.
My tee shot went right in the rough near a tree, though I wanted to manifest it in the fairway.  Basically your world is the 'perspective' of how you see it.  My opponent hits a drive of 300 yards and I hit mine 260 yards.  Both have distance but as we know, golfers would tend to see the shorter drive as not having the advantage of the longer one.


Which brings me to my hole in one that occurred on Sunday.  Prior to the hole-in-one many things occurred at Cimarron Golf Resort and most of the items before I played would have normally set me off and ticked me off.


I will start by describing my range warm up.  The range at Cimarron I like because it is very large and has grass.  I arrived 1.5 hours before my tee time to basically practice on grass finally and not some mat like we have in San Diego.  My practice routine started well, it was not too crowded and I had my station to hit from.  Each station is separated by bag stands.  As  a lefty I usually look for one where the grass on the right is gone and the left grass still there for the lefties like me.  So I found my station.  


The range got very busy  around 11 am as the players arriving late to their tee time try to force a warm up in as they arrive rushed and late of course.  At this point I am half way through my 80 balls and just starting to hit a driver.  Every station now is taken and out of no where a man steps into my station (designed for ONE player) and starts to swing and hit shots.  He basically shoved himself in, and began hitting as many shots as fast as humanly possible.  Whack, whack, whack....right next to me!  To say I was upset would be an understatement!


But having worked on my Polarity topic for 2 weeks I did not let this situation bother me as much as I might have.  Now I had to take deep breathes to not yell at this guy.  But it was so funny watching him just whack, and whack and whack.  Within 5 minutes his friend comes in and says we are on the tee.  Saved by the bell, good!


Cimarron is usually not a good place to tee off after 11am, they have a propensity to get behind on the starting time.  They run out of carts too.  So I finished my warm up and went to the first tee to check in and try to get a cart.  I give the starter my receipt and he says a cart MIGHT be available.  This is 20 min before my tee time.  The line to tee off looks long.  


I go down to the cart area, give them my name and the guy says ok, Ill give you the NEXT cart.  Then Polarity hits again.... a 4 some drives up, drops their bags off and tell the guy they have a 12:20 tee time.  Well there is not 12:20 tee time since mine was 12:16.  They insist they are right, they go to the golf shop.  The shop radios the cart guy and says give them a cart.


He obeys and gives them 2 carts, where was mine....of course they are more important than me.  I am almost fuming at this point.  So I walk back to the starter and he asks me my name and time.  Of course he just saw me 15 min before.  He says I do not have a tee time....WHAT?


So I have to pull my receipt out and show him...he looks overwhelmed and says he will TRY to get me out in the next HOUR!  
Remember Al......POLARITY!!!


Yes every situation has two points to it.  I have a tee time and it is moving like barometric pressure before a storm.  I had a hitting station by myself on the range alone, and then I did not.  Ebb and flow as I await the tee time.  Finally another starter shows up, and I explain to him my situation and he sees I am not happy.  Ok, he will fix the situation.


Indeed he did fix the situation, moved things around and got me back to my original group that I was paired with.  That foursome who was let on in front of me was 2 groups ahead of me.  Of course they played slow on the course.  The players in my group comment how slow things are. I am just thinking to myself , hey I am on the course, Polarity occurred and I am on the course.  It is not raining, it is now 75 degrees and sunny.  Ok this is a good day.


I bogeyed the first two holes due to misclubbing two approach shots.  So all was good and I then birdied holes 3 and 4 so was back to even.  I under read 2 birdie putts and was still fine with things on holes 6 and 7.  By the time I got to the 9th tee I discovered I really was not totally visualizing the shots like I should so I stood at the tee and decided the club to hit with the 147 yards shot being into the wind.


I decide to shape a low 8 iron to the hole and then told myself "commit and visualize".  As I stood over the shot I could see the draw of the shot and I had a premonition of a really tight shot to the pin. Just before I hit the shot I thought, this could go in.    The ball takes off and I think....shit its gonna go in.


Sure enough it goes in on the fly!  I did not over react since I basically had a feeling it would go in for some reason.  The players I was with were screaming and I just gave a fist bump to them and thought, wow this Polarity stuff really works!


I got in my cart and thought of making the video of the shot so that is when I started the video as I arrived to the green which I shared on social media and our PDP app page.


I will add that word spread like wild fire to the groups behind me and ahead of me.  Everyone wanted me to buy their drinks...lol.  Ok so the beverage cart tab was high, but the Polarity of the day was interesting to live through.


So the month of April we will be working on Polarity and the law of Rhythm.   Ill cover that on podcasts starting Monday and some written work for you also.


I could have reacted on the range differently with rage, I could have reacted to the starter and cart attendant differently with being the victim.  I could have reacted to the slow play by the 4 some that got on with no tee time; but I did not.  I saw each situation as a separate situation and what are the poles of the situation that I am seeing.  Late tee time or on time?  Slow pace of play or I am playing golf?  


I can assure you if I had reacted in different ways and not observed the situation as I did then I would not have had that hole in one.  My energy would have been negative, my emotions all shot, my conscious mind in control and my subconscious mind shut off.


However I was still calm, could visualize and could access my subconscious mind.  Because I could access the subconscious mind I created the hole in one!  


I will add that trying to finish the back nine was hard since I was drinking IPA's in celebration. Had to Uber to my hotel....lol.  But it was a great day and I made sure I saw it that way the entire day even with how it started with that guy in my station on the range.

The situation you see has opposite sides to it, in the fairway or rough.  On the green or in the bunker.  40 foot putt short of the cup or a tap in.  This is Polarity.  You face it every day in golf.   You may not master it, but you must understand it and realize how you react to all situations you face in golf.