#144. Drugs vs. Germs, and a Clint Eastwood Putting Exercise

My brother got out of the hospital yesterday.  He's not out of the woods, but at least he's facing in the right direction. It's no fun playing host to the kind of major-league competition that really matters: drugs vs. germs.

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Late in the afternoon I got out to the practice green and worked on another of
Printer Bowler's exercises.  Not as sexy as the "Be the Ball" exercise, this one is called the "The Target is Locked" or "The Magic Triangle."  The purpose of it, according to Bowler, is "to develop and use you own precise target lock-and-fire system," a la Clint Eastwood.

The idea is to learn to trust the fact that humans are the most sophisticated computer systems of all.  Bowler suggests doing this exercise three times a week for six weeks--more of a training regimen than a quick fix.  The basic idea is to "pulse a radar beam" from your eye to the hole.  "See it hit the target with a bright white flash about the size of a golf ball and say to yourself: 'The target is identified.'"  As you get ready to putt, a laser triangle develops connecting your eyes, the hole, and the ball.  You send another radar beam to the hole, envisioning another flash of light, then you "fire" the ball.

This is just a summary of the exercise's steps that Bowler gives in his book The Cosmic Laws of Golf (and Everything Else), but you get the idea. The other important point is that you keep changing the triangle.  In other words, keep varying the distance and/or hole and/or direction on each shot, to give a chance for your "computer system" to learn to calibrate distance, speed, and direction.

I can't say my first experience with the exercise was especially effective, but I suspect I've got too much on my mind.  In any case, learning to focus and trust is always a good thing, on the golf course or in the world of health.

Happy New Year!

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