"The Damn Media"

Today is a link to Ryan Lavner's GC article about David Duval and Jim Furyk's first round 65 at the Zurich Classic. It's both humorous -- the title of my post is Duval's remark to Furyk as he went to meet the media after their round -- and informative, which I want to tell you about here.



One thing that leapt out at me from Lavner's article was how Duval's perspective about his game has changed over the years.

"When you don’t play a lot and you don’t have that opportunity, you feel like you have to play perfectly,” he said. “Being on the other side of the desk, you see how many crappy golf shots really, truly get hit, and it’s like, look, you don’t have to be perfect. You just have to hit more good ones than bad ones and go from there."

That's the kind of thing we all should learn from. This is a former #1, a pro who took that title from Tiger Woods, and then had it all taken from him by health and technical problems. "You don't have to be perfect" is a phrase that we should engrave on every club and print on every golf ball we own. Just figure out how to hit more good shots than bad shots and work with that.

Duval also mentions that the main reason he's playing this week is because he just wanted to get together with Furyk and play some ball. It's okay to play for fun, folks. Let the world gripe about how you play all they want; if you enjoy it, who cares what they think?

I suspect that was on Duval's mind when he made the comment about "the damn media." He knew that, as a general rule, the media has no concept of golf as something fun. It's something to be analyzed, dissected and criticized -- after all, how many times have you heard a commentator say something like "that shot wasn't up to his standards" after the pro didn't hit the ball as close as he said he should?

I always wonder how they can be so sure; perhaps the player didn't feel good over the shot and was actually quite happy that the shot could even found. We all have days like that! And taking Duval's advice might help you reach that happy place as well.

In any case, it seems that Duval and Furyk are quite happy with their play. After one round they're T21 in a field of 80 teams. It seems that "not being perfect" works pretty well.

Whether "the damn media" gets it or not.