In other news (apolitical thread)...

[utee94]

Golf is a lot like pitching, you need to relax, but be wired at the same time, mentally confident of course, and relaxed.

Being good at either requires good muscle memory where you don't have to think.  Thinking kills both.  And hold it like an egg.

Strikeouts are fascist I say.

Bull Durham (1988) - Strikeouts Are Fascist Scene (3/12) | Movieclips

Don't forget to breathe through your right eyelid and wear a garter belt.  The rose goes in front, big guy.

[Cincydawg]

Bull Durham (1988) - Nuke Brings the Heat Scene (4/12) | Movieclips

[betarhoalphadelta]

Golf is a lot like pitching, you need to relax, but be wired at the same time, mentally confident of course, and relaxed.

I've been told by golf instructors that throwing (pitcher, QB) makes it easier to learn the golf swing than a good hitter in baseball. Although hockey players apparently take to it quite naturally. 

Baseball hitters, as some of you apparently have learned, have a tendency to slice it off the planet...

[MikeDeTiger]

Baseball hitters, as some of you apparently have learned, have a tendency to slice it off the planet...

I think if I'd have worked at it, I could've gotten my slice to actually go behind me, at 180 degrees.  

My slice was a prime candidate for Physics-Buster.  

[Cincydawg]

I learned a ton about pitching from my coach (obviously many many years too latter to matter much, though I almost certainly was at best maybe an AA level thrower with coaching, maybe).  I THOUGHT I had OK mechanics, and was way off, sometimes in simple ways.  My coach also told me I looked pretty good and then carved me up.

He told me he never got any decent coaching in HS or even in the minors, and he was a first round pick.  He said he learned to pitch after significant arm injuries.  I was amazed how much there was to learn and am pretty sure I got a cursory overview after 15 or so private lessons.  He watched me throw in camp and complemented me after, but he's a nice guy.  I got hit pretty hard a couple times, but by guys half my age so there is that.  I K'd one dude on a vicious curve ball.

All this stuff takes a lot of effort and time.  Playing bridge was like that for me, I haven't played in decades.

[betarhoalphadelta]

I think the pitching thing is kinda funny...

Not sure if I told this story here, but in 2016 one of my best friends was getting married. He's from Indiana, but was living in San Diego at the time (wife to be from Orange County). So they ended up doing a destination wedding--Buffalo Trace distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky. 

My then-girlfriend (now wife) and I flew out for it, routing in and out of Louisville. We took the redeye, and spent the first night in Louisville, so we had all day to sightsee/etc. 

Naturally, one of the places we went was the Louisville Slugger factory. Very cool tour, very good time. But one of the exhibits they had there was a pitching cage with a radar. 

I thought... I'm 38 (at the time), not old, I'm tall/large and still pretty athletic... In college when we were playing catch with a football, I could throw pretty far relative to buddies. Obviously I'm not thinking I could be chucking 90 mph fastballs. But I thought... Physically, how hard can it be to throw 65 or 70 mph? At my size? 

Nope. Averaged about 55 mph over three throws. And my arm/shoulder hurt like a MFer the rest of the day!

Thing is... Give me a couple days with a pitching coach to actually do it with proper mechanics? I'll bet I could add 10 mph. Still won't have the ceiling of a real pitcher with real talent. But I think it was my mechanics, not any physical limitations, that kept me at 55 mph. 

A lot of people think the golf swing is "natural, like throwing a ball". Well, yeah, it is. Just like throwing a ball, most people who haven't been trained to do it suck 

[MikeDeTiger]

All this stuff takes a lot of effort and time.  Playing bridge was like that for me, I haven't played in decades.

Playing defense in basketball came pretty naturally and quickly for me.  I was pesky, even for hotshots.  It took much longer to be proficient on offense, particularly driving the lane.  Plus, at "only" 6'2" I had a significant height disadvantage vs. a lot of guys I played against.  It took a long time to learn to compensate.  However, "seeing the court"....assists, putting the ball through traffic, etc. was something I was only ever "ok" at. 

I've wondered what it's like standing in the batter's box against a legit pitcher.  I was always fine against high school competition and rec league guys, but I wonder how intimidating and hopeless it could feel to watch a pitch go by from a guy who's for real.  Some years ago I saw one of the best LSU baseball teams face OU in a super-regional.  OU had this hotshot pitcher who was a true dealer.  Our lineup was deadly as well and had a range of styles they were good at.  If anybody were ready, it would be them.  I recall watching the first pitch.....that OU kid threw a curve ball that was one of the prettiest things I've ever seen.  Fast, for a curve, right on the money, and deceptive.....that thing was high until at the last moment it wasn't.  Our poor batter didn't even swing, he just blinked, and he clearly had a "WTF just happened?" look on his face.  We eventually chased him, but not until he mowed down our lineup twice.  If a bunch of good college hitters can look like that against a mere college pitcher.....what would it feel like if I could face a major leaguer?  How many chances would I need to make contact, if I could at all?

[betarhoalphadelta]

If a bunch of good college hitters can look like that against a mere college pitcher.....what would it feel like if I could face a major leaguer?  

Yep. And this is one of those things that I think makes golf so difficult. We all KNOW we'd get mowed down by a MLB pitcher. We all KNOW we couldn't spend more than two plays on an NFL field without leaving in traction. We all KNOW that on a court full of NBA players we wouldn't get a shot off and we'd probably end up posterized. But those opportunities are never available to us, so we never have to actually test it.

And then we step onto the first tee of a golf course, perhaps a course where we've seen PGA Tour pros play, using effectively the same equipment as them, and wonder why we "suck" because we can't hit it 300 down the middle all the time like Scheffler 

It's the most beautiful game in the world because you have the access to do anything a pro golfer does--and a cruel game because it will show you VERY quickly just how far you are away from them. 

[MikeDeTiger]

Well, it was of course naivete on my part, but to some degree I did know I wouldn't be good starting out.  It's just that I thought the parts that would take a long time to get good at would be putting and driving the ball as far as the hotshots do.  I didn't really understand that just hitting the ball in the direction I wanted it to go would be such a hardship. 

I was also used to moving from "know nothing, can do nothing" in sports to some level of ability and proficiency pretty quickly.  I wasn't really cut out for football and never played anything more than neighborhood type games, but I was plenty athletic enough, if not bulky enough.  Basketball and baseball were pretty quick to pick up, though as I mentioned, some aspects of basketball did take more time.  (And here I should point out I never tried my hand at pitching and that might've taken some doing.)

With golf, it was like pulling teeth, and I didn't hardly ever see much progress.  I suppose I just didn't like it enough to push through that.  I also didn't have the money in college for lessons, so, there was that.  I mostly did it because my friends had started doing it (and my dad had taken it up and he let me borrow his clubs).  It was a lot easier and a lot more fun to just go shoot some hoops. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

But that's my point. You sucked at those sports too 

The difference is what you're measuring against. 

To play college golf at the Div-1 or Div-2 level, you should be scratch or a little bit better. That means you're REALLY good. 

When you talk about going to play pickup basketball, and thought you were "pretty good", did you think you were somewhere near being a Div-1 or Div-2 basketball player? No, of course not. If you'd been playing against players of that caliber, you'd have learned pretty quickly just how bad you were. You talk about being pesky on defense... Against "hot-shots". Would you have been able to contain, for example, 2024-25 LSU guard Cam Carter, who was "only" an inch taller than you? I doubt it. He shot 42.5% from the field last season (probably low considering about 50% of his shots appear to be 3-pointers). What do you think his shooting percentage would have been if you--at your prime--were guarding him?

A batting percentage of .333 in beer league softball doesn't translate to the majors, as you well know. It might seem like you've achieved "basic competence" in that environment, but it's a sport where you can get away with being terrible because everyone around you is equally terrible. 

The difference is that in playing rec league basketball, or beer league softball, there's nobody there to expose how bad we are. In golf... Physics and the course are MORE than capable of doing so. 

I'm saying that most people who think they were "pretty good" at a sport because they could play well against weak competition are basically the equivalent of the 100+ shooter in golf. They were never as good as they think they were. The difference is they never actually got exposed to how bad they are because they never experienced ELITE competition. 

[Cincydawg]

If you can throw a ball 300 feet, you can throw almost 80 mph.  97 mph gives 400 feet. Not many humans can throw a baseball 300 feet.  I’ve tried to hit 90 mph, the ball hisses at you.  You start thinking about getting hit. 

[Cincydawg]

I did face the guy who later was the number one draft pivk in HS twice.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

Another way to put it... I've mentioned that back in my day, I did martial arts. I was decent. Made it to 2nd degree black belt when I was 17. Used to have a bunch of trophies from tournament competition. 

But, as I talked about in some thread (maybe this one?), the very thing that soured me on football at a young age was probably one of the things that helped me excel in tournaments. I.e. I was "too big" for my age in football, so I was constantly facing people older and more physically developed than me. But in martial arts, a lot of those tournaments were at age 14-17, when I was towering over every other "junior", so I had a massive size advantage on basically everyone I faced. 

Well, one day I came across a "hot shot". I remember his name. And when I googled him today, his name actually takes you to various hits for his martial arts history--whereas if you google mine, that does NOT come up lol. 

He was younger than me--about a year and a half. He was smaller than me. I can't find his height listed online, but couldn't have been more than 5'9". I hoped to use my reach advantage to keep him far enough away to score on him. 

This dude was lightning. Probably the fastest person I've ever sparred against. And I was pretty used to going against fast guys. One of my favorites was the son of the owner of the karate school. He was a year older than me, tested for his 4th degree when I tested for my 2nd so he was definitely more skilled than me, but I was bigger than him. I loved sparring him because his skill and speed could test me in a way nobody else could. I think he loved sparring me because I--unlike many--wasn't terrified of him. He got the best of me more often than not, of course, but I think I challenged him more than most others could. But for nearly everyone else, I was good enough, and SO goddamn big, that it was not fair. 

I think I scored a point on him in the match. Which just pissed him off because I don't think that happened often. And then I went on to lose 5-1. 

This dude showed me REAL damn quick what elite looks like. I was training VERY hard back in those days. I was good. But nothing I could ever do would make me have what that guy had. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

And yet... That dude is still basically a nobody. Didn't go to win Olympic medals. Maybe got a couple of mentions in the industry rags for a few years. Maybe made a little name for himself online selling instructional DVDs (back when DVDs were a thing). 

As much as that's what elite looked like to me... There was another tier above him.