August, 2003
JustMikeF
It’s been thirty years since I have played any golf. I only played for one year, but several times a week. One of the lessons that I learned was “Don’t beat your boss on the golf course”.
One of the other lessons that stick out in my memory was to stand upright for a long putt, bend your knees for a short putt. But, the lesson that is most memorable was a comment that I overheard accidentally.
That comment haunts me to this day. It is the single most connecting thought and observation between golf and precision shooting to my mind.
I couldn’t make it to Biloxi, so I decided to go out on one of our fine gambling boats here in Mayport, Fl. It has been quite awhile since I had taken one of these cruises to nowhere.
I had forgotten what a pleasure it was to twiddle my thumbs for an hour until we reached international waters. A lot of familiar faces. Craps veterans, but no precision shooters. Jerry was aboard. Jerry is a transplanted, dyed in the wool, New Yorker. You can just picture him at Yankee Stadium yelling obscenities on to the field during the game.
There was nothing memorable about the session we played that day. Nothing memorable until Jerry walked over to the table just as the dice were being passed to me. Jerry still remembered the different dice sets I usually used in the past.
He didn’t realize that I was getting ready to throw hardways. ” What Are You Doing?”, he said in a loud thundering bellow that caused everyone on that end of the boat to stop and look toward the craps table. Even one of the suits turned and started walking towards the table. Jerry was loud and obnoxious.
This wasn’t the first time he was known to bellow around the craps table. He was just tolerated. I lost control and said “Goddammit, Jerry, don’t you know not to bark at the shooter?” You could have heard a pin drop! Even the slot machine players stopped and looked our way.
A voice from behind me said, ” That’s okay, you know what Baby likes.” The voice was so soft and sexy that I was immediately calmed down. I saw that she had made bets on all the hardways right beside mine.
She said it again, “You know what Baby likes.” She said it so soft that I believe I was the only one that heard her. “Hard Six” , was the call. “Oh,Yes you know what Baby likes, now come on Sugar”, she whispers. “Hard Ten”, the stickman said in a squeaky voice. “That’s it, you know what Baby likes, Sugar.” “Hard Eight”. Now you might think the only thing on my mind was this womans voice, but it wasn’t.
For some reason I was more aware of my backswing. I drew my hand back slower than usual. This caused me to concentrate on keeping the dice square with table surface and the back wall on the forward motion before release. I made three more hardways before the dice slipped in my grip and the five/two seven appeared. As I am writing this I remember now Jerry picking up his winnings after each toss saying, “Thank you Mr. Mike,” in a subdued voice.
What has this got to do with golf? Well, the comment I overheard a golfer say was, “Show me a player with a fast backswing and I’ll show you a loser.” In the rush to learn all of the sets of the dice, where the sweetspots are on the tables, and so on, we neglect some of the very basic mechanics of the shooting motion.
Color me up!
JustMikeF
