MASKS, TEMPERATURE SCREENING, CONTACT TRACING AND MORE – ALL SEEM “FORCED” UPON US. BUT LET’S LOOK AT THE BRIGHT SIDE
Surely masking up isn’t the worst thing to have ever happened to the food industry. I’m pretty sure most of us wouldn’t mind if it remains a permanent feature even long after the Covid-19 pandemic is done and dusted.
When the “old normal” occasionally included bizarre stuff such as washing plates in water-filled back lane potholes, the “new normal” – wearing masks included – is surely headed in a much better, more sanitary direction.
More sectors and activities seem to be opening up with each passing week. We are able to get out and about again. We have also begun to feel some of the same old pressures that we did before lockdown. Those bits we surely don’t miss.
Just a few short weeks ago when the traffic volume was still low, there was ample parking. We looked and felt like a proper developed nation. The few pedestrians that were there kept to the sidewalks. The sidewalks themselves were clear of the usual pre-Covid-19 bedlam … jay-walking hipsters, hustlers and hawker stalls. The roads seem wider than before. That wasn’t an illusion. There was effectively more space to manoeuvre because, for once, the curbside was completely free of illegally parked vehicles. For a few short weeks we enjoyed driving as it was intended to be – stress free.
But the volume of traffic has gone back up in many parts of the city, so too our stress levels.
Motorists again seem to insist on creeping up alongside, hidden in your blind spot. Again they weave in and out of traffic willy-nilly. We are back to having streams of two- and four-wheeled stress inducers who track faithfully along the broken white line blissfully unaware that those are merely the boundary markers and not something that indicates the imaginary centre of some dangerously selfish lane. Errant motorists who laugh at the law. And if you happen to be on the Federal Highway for example, the two-wheeled offenders aren’t even supposed to be there in the first place.
Under quarantine, Malaysia locked down. The whole world shut down. A whole new set of anxieties seemed to be pressed upon us. Much of it was self-induced though. There was no point in losing sleep over conditions we had absolutely no control over – conditions that for the most part had little chance of affecting us whilst we were safely isolated. It is an attitude that can be very beneficial if carried over to golf.
Unlike football, badminton or other sports (including avoiding maniacal food delivery ‘cub-chai’ bikers on Federal Highway), the pressure we feel on the teebox, fairways and greens is entirely of our own making. Like sheltering at home during quarantine, we play golf in isolation.
What happens to the ball is not dependant on the action of others. It is under our complete control. Well, there’s always a bit of difficulty matching up the plan and the execution of the intended shot, but you know what I mean.
If only we are able to shut out all the distractions, we would probably play the best rounds of our lives. A 150-yard “forced” carry over a lake would be just a bog-standard stress-free mid-iron shot. Water? What water? A three-foot putt would be the easy tap-in that it really ought to be. The fact that your opponent drained a long curving 20-footer should have had absolutely no bearing on your nervous poke whatsoever … but (heavy sigh),it usually does.
On the practice range we calmly, even cheekily, fire off dozens of accurate darts that harass the flag. And yet out on a proper round, surrounded by trash-talking flight mates, an “easy” 100-yard approach shot to a pin in the middle of a huge green seems to make the hands sweat and the heart pound like Animal, the crazy rock drummer on The Muppet Show.
Time to proactively dial back the senses a little … or given lots of time, it will sort itself out.
Back in school, I wasted two whole seasons of sprinting before my heart stopped trying to leap out of my chest each time I readied myself on the starting blocks, and I could finally get down to the actual business of putting one foot in front of the other as fast as possible.
Conservation of anxious energy. Worry only about the immediate task, or golf shot, at hand. And nothing else.
Drive long and prosper!
