SOUTHERN EXPOSURE: GOLF CAN TEACH YOU A LOT ABOUT YOUR WEAKNESSES IN LIFE

To many people, spring means the blossoming of flowers, fresh warm breezes, picnics and cookouts, and long evening walks. And while all of that is great, what spring really means is golf.

Now that the mornings aren't bitterly cold, notice I'm not going so far as to call them warm, I've hoisted the bag onto my shoulders, cleaned the dust from my spikes and fitted the cracked and worn golf glove to my hand.

I'm ready to pursue man's greatest prey since we gave up tracking Woolly Mammoths -- the elusive golf ball.

Started playing again about two weeks ago. The beginning of golf season is always the best time. My game is truly bad during this time because I've had about five months of almost no practice; but I don't mind as much. It's the beginning, I haven't struck a golf ball in anger in months, so what if I'm playing badly.

I've heard golf described in many ways. My favorite is "a good walk ruined." I've taken that description to heart, and I am determined to do as little as I can to spoil that walk.

I don't wear golf shoes anymore. I've never had a pair that didn't hurt my feet at least a little by the end of 18 holes. I wear running shoes now -- mainly because they're comfortable and secondly because it's easier to jog after an errant drive in running shoes.

Besides, I've never noticed a huge difference between a round of golf in spikes and a round of golf in sneakers. In fact, I shot my best round -- an 85 on 18 holes -- in a pair of basketball shoes.

I've learned a lot about myself since taking up golf. The game has a tendency to accentuate your weaknesses and diminish your strengths. My strength is my length, I can hit the stuffing out of the ball.

Unfortunately, that is also my weakness. It is a fact that a mistake at the beginning of a stroke will magnify exponentially the farther it travels. That means a small error when I hit the ball becomes a big miss by the time it lands.

But that's OK, it sure is fun to watch it fly.

The person I've learned the most from is the guy whose game is completely the opposite of my own. If it weren't for the fact that we both use golf clubs to hit golf balls, you would think Sam Blackwell and I were participating in different sports.

Sam is steady, contemplative and thinks of things like strategy and positioning. I'm erratic, impulsive and have an exaggerated opinion of my abilities -- much like my attitude in life.

I'm not going to go so far as to say golf is like life; it's not. In life I don't often have occasion to beat little defenseless things with a club.

But golf can teach you a lot about life, especially the things you need to improve. I need to become more patient, and golf will teach me that. I need to think more strategically, be better prepared and not always go for the high-risk approach when playing it safe would save me some heartache.

I also need to strive for steady and not explosive. I have a good day of golf when I hit two or three extraordinary shots. I should probably think of a good day as one where I shot 20 strokes less than my average. That's thinking about the big picture -- not one of my strong points.

These changes are not going to happen overnight. In fact they may never happen. I know what's good for me, as most of us do, and most of the time I choose to ignore that.

Doing the spectacular, even if it is only occasionally, is exhilarating. Knocking a 5-iron 187 yards to within 9 feet of the hole is almost worth shooting a score of 100 for the day.

David Angier is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.