The Hole at the Center of the Earth

I try every week. I try my best. I practice day in and day out. It’s all I ever think about. Most people don’t know what it’s like. Likely, less than 1% of the world’s population knows what it feels like. I know I don’t. I could go up to anyone on the street and ask them if they had done it before, and I guarantee, they would say no.

Most people will live the rest of their lives not knowing what it is like, and they will be fine with that. But not me. For some unknown reason, the idea has burrowed itself in my brain and I can’t get it out no matter what I do. I’ll never be satisfied until it happens. Have you ever wanted something so much you would do anything to get it? This may be the only thing I’ve ever felt so strongly about.

I watch the people on the television, the ones that do it all the time. They do it in Scotland, in England, in France, even here in the United States. I don’t know how they are able to do it so often. It seems like every time I turn on the TV, one of them has done it again. It’s so frustrating to see it done so easily, and yet most of the time, I don’t get anywhere close.

But then I look closer. I look at their faces, arms, and necks. Not a drop of sweat on them. They don’t know the heat, can’t handle the heat. What’s that old saying? “If you can’t handle the heat, then get out of the kitchen.” That’s good for cooks I guess, but I’m talking about something way different, way harder, in a place that’s way hotter. I’m talking about Texas. “If you can’t handle the heat, then get out of Texas!” Go back north where you can relax and have your nice cool breezes and rainy skies. You won’t get much of that here, not in the middle of July, not during this season. This season will break you if you are not ready for it.

That’s why it is so easy for them. They are in perfect conditions. They couldn’t do it here I bet, certainly not today.

I look ahead of me, the visible waves of heat blur the vision of my goal. I look up into the bright sky. It’s clear and blue. It’s the most beautiful blue you could ever dream of. It’s the kind of blue that helps cure a heartbreak by clearing you mind and helping you move on. It’s the kind of blue that forces you to be happy when you’re in it. And it’s the kind of blue that when you’re sitting at your desk in whatever sort of office you work in, and the light from the bright sky peeks through the windows into your eyes, it makes you look up to it. It makes you stop whatever you are doing and wonder, “What the hell am I doing here? Why aren’t I out there making the most of this day?”

I realize though, today, this magnificent beauty comes with a price. The sun is 92.29 million miles from me, yet I can feel it burning the skin on my arms and face. The heat today is something I’ve never felt. It could cook my dinner on the surface of the concrete in the parking lot. It could cook me if I let it. The enormous ball of heat and light doesn’t play by our rules, we play by its rules. It determines whether we live or die and is to be respected as well as feared. I get alerts on my phone every hour telling me not to go outside. “When the Sun tells you not to go outdoors, don’t go outdoors! Respect the Sun!” it says. But my phone cannot see the sky. It can’t see the color of the ocean above me. My phone knows many things, it can tell me what the Sun is telling me, and it can tell me how the breeze that cools my skin forms, it can tell me why I shouldn’t be out here, but it can’t tell me how mesmerizing the sky looks. It can’t tell me what it feels like to be standing on this perfectly trimmed green grass. It can’t tell me what it sounds like when this small, round, white, dimpled object I hold in my right hand makes perfect contact with the sleek and slender piece of metal I hold in my left. It can’t tell how this same object made of nothing more than urethane and rubber has me addicted to a craft that I will likely never make any money off of, never become famous for, and certainly never master.

Yet here I am. I am outside when my phone tells me not to be. I am outside when the Sun is saying, “Be wary, boy. I am the reason you are alive. You can listen to me and stay that way, or with one foul swoop I can end you and the rest of your kind!” I hear you Sun. I am aware of your great power; I feel it on me now. I respect your enormity and your greatness, but I must tell you, I love this game more than I fear you. Do what you must, and in the meantime, I’ll do what I must.

I’m crouched now, staring into the distance. If you were to look into my eyes, you wouldn’t see my work, you wouldn’t see the school I went to and the grades I received, and you certainly wouldn’t see the pain I carry. Those thoughts and feeling are for another time when my work here is done. What you see in my eyes now are the hundreds of thousands of hours I spent practicing this craft. You would see the countless failures I have attained and wear like scars on the skin of a ancient warrior.

I couldn’t tell you exactly how hot it is right now. I know it’s hot enough turn my skin red and melt my mind into mush. It’s hot enough to turn car metal into an inferno of scorching pain at the touch. It’s also hot enough to make the average man stay inside and watch those people in England or Scotland or wherever do what I attempt to do right now. But like I said before, they couldn’t do it here.

There is a hole at the center of the earth.

“The hole is 183 yards away,” my phone tells me, for it knows many things. “But you won’t hit it. Only the men and woman on the TV can do that. The ones with the names everyone know—Woods, Koepka, Mickelson, Thomas. The ones who make millions of dollars doing what you try to do. And who are you?”

I think about what my phone is telling me. Maybe it’s impossible. With the blistering heat, the great distance, and my lack of skill, maybe it’s just impossible. Is this just who I am? A man who can’t overcome the odds. A man that will never accomplish anything worthwhile unless it is given to him. That’s what they will say if I call it quits right now. That’s what they will say if I pack my bag and head back to the parking lot.

But I am more than that, so much more than that. I come here week after week and try and try again. I’ve never done it before but all it takes is for everything to go right just one time. Then I’ll be part of that 1%. I’ll be in elite company. Some might call me lucky and say it was a fluke. They’ll tell me it will never happen again and maybe they’ll be right, but it happened. It happened because no matter what the conditions, I tried, and I willed it to be.

The endless hours of preparation in heat just like this has conditioned me. It has made me stronger than the Sun for these few seconds. My skin burns, but I pay no attention. Sweat crawls into my eyes, but I don’t notice. The locusts scream out from the trees all around me, trying to break my concentration, but they are not my concern. My concern is at my feet. The white, dimpled sphere at my feet, that has owned my dreams and aspirations for the past year. It sits on the perfectly manicured grass two feet in front of me. It stares back at me as I lay the face of my club next to it, perfectly in line with the hole at the center of the earth.