LETTERS FROM HOME: THE ART OF RELAXING IN YOUR COMFORT ZONE

Aug. 24, 2000

Dear Ken,

Choking -- not the Heimlich maneuver kind but the kind athletes fear more than suffocation -- interests the most recent issue of The New Yorker.

Choking, the New Yorker maintains, is the act of thinking too much in a stressful situation when you should let your instincts rule. You have trained your muscles by hitting thousands of balls, so get your brain out of the way and let those muscles remember what to do.

One day earlier this summer, standing on the fairway of the 16th hole at Bent Creek Golf Course with a pitching wedge in my hand, I was engulfed by the possibility of breaking 80 for the first time in my golf life.

Two thoughts occurred to me as I prepared to hit the next, relatively easy shot to the green: first, that I could make a triple bogey on one of the final holes and still break 80; and second, I spontaneously imagined telling friends the story of how I blew breaking 80.

Welcome to that story.

Choking in a game would seem a minor matter for those of us who aren't professional golfers. But when you do it, you wonder if the failure says something about your character, or if you have a fear of succeeding. Everybody wants to be someone who comes through, not someone who chokes.

The golf books say choking can occur when you get out of your comfort zone. Breaking 80 or challenging for a title are new territory so you subconsciously foozle away a few strokes to take the pressure off.

If I have to get off the couch during a televised PGA tournament to steer a vacuum cleaner, I'm out of my comfort zone.

When I'm far from the green grass of a golf course and making the grass in the back yard fly with a mower, I'm out of my comfort zone.

When I must forget about aiming at cups and remember to wash them instead, my comfort zone has disappeared.

I am in my comfort zone carrying my golf bag but lost when it comes to hefting garbage bags.

DC accused me of being out of my comfort zone when it's time to feed Hank and Lucy but was surprised to learn that I feed them every morning unless an early tee time interferes. For four years now, we've both been feeding them almost every morning.

The dogs have a new comfort zone in their dining future.

I tried to talk to a golf teacher about choking but all he wanted to talk about was his new baby girl, how looking at her almost brings tears to his eyes. Choking didn't seem important anymore.

Everybody has choked at one time or another. Arnold Palmer blew a big lead on the last day of the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. Greg Norman did the same at the Masters.

Choking is a rite of passage. You have to have choked to know how not to choke.

Midway through a mediocre round later in the summer, I unaccountably made two birdies and then my first eagle. I didn't know what my score was and refused to let myself add it up to keep from establishing whether I was in or out of my comfort zone.

I concentrated just on the shot before me, and that seemed to make all the difference.

Ram Dass, the guru who also loved golf, taught the value of being here now. I know where he learned it.

Love,

Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.