Gretzky's greatness
fades on the golf course
Submitted by SHNS on Thu, 06/05/2008
- 17:57.
* By LORNE RUBENSTEIN, Toronto Globe and Mail
* golf
COLLINGWOOD, Ontario -- The man in the business suit sat down in a
boardroom overlooking the sleek Georgian Bay Club. It was easy to forget
this is Wayne Gretzky. It was particularly easy to forget the Great One's
genius as a hockey player when, he talked -- all too humanly -- about
golf, a sport to which he has no pretensions to get anywhere approaching
great, or even good.
"At best, I could be about a seven-handicap if I took a year to work on my
game," said Gretzky, an 18-handicapper. "My habits in golf are so erratic
and poor that to break that all down would be tough for my mind to do."
Gretzky was in town to promote the Nationwide Tour pro-am event that he
will play host to at the Georgian Bay and the Raven at Lora Bay a short
drive away, from June 26-29. The tournament is called the Ford Wayne
Gretzky Classic, and plenty of his hockey pals, including Mark Messier and
Doug Gilmour, will play as celebrities. Each amateur, including Gretzky,
will pair up with a tour pro and try to make the cut as a team.
The tournament will offer the third largest purse on the Nationwide Tour.
That's $800,099, for obvious reasons. Gretzky, who wore the number 99 on
his jersey throughout his career, asked David Hearn to be his teammate.
Hearn, like Gretzky, is from Brantford, Ont. Hearn qualified on Monday for
the U.S. Open in San Diego next week.
Unfortunately, Gretzky won't be practicing before tournament week. He's
too busy. Still, the 47-year-old knows he could use the practice. His
swing flaws can lead to embarrassing situations, including hitting a U.S.
Secret Service agent who was up in a tree providing security for former
U.S. president Gerald Ford.
"We're creatures of habit," he said. "My habit is to slice the ball. Five
of 10 drives I'll hit straight and five out of 10 I'll hit into the water
to the right."
But why can't even a superb athlete such as Gretzky prevent a habit when
he directs himself to do so? The late neurologist and professor Harold
Klawans applied himself to this vexing question. Klawans wrote a terrific
book called "Why Michael Couldn't Hit, and Other Tales of the Neurology of
Sports.'' Gretzky was intrigued when he was shown the book.
Klawans wondered why basketball great Michael Jordan failed when he tried
to play professional baseball. His book includes essays on Ben Hogan's
yips and on Muhammad Ali's brain and a chapter called "The Seventh Inning
Stretch: Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky.''
Klawans wrote that Gretzky had "the fastest long loop reflex arcs," based
on a University of British Columbia study. Without getting into the
details, this accounts for why Gretzky was able to pull the trigger so
fast when shooting.
Gretzky, Klawans wrote, takes "less time (than any other player) from the
instant he perceives the stimulus (an open corner of the net) until his
shot has been fired." A hockey player is moving when the stimulus hits
him, and he reacts. But golf is a stationary ball game in which the player
is also stationary. Anxiety can easily flood a player.
Gretzky experienced this in the 2003 AT&T National Pro-Am in Pebble Beach,
Calif. Mike Weir was his teammate. They made the 54-hole cut and played in
the final group on the Sunday with Davis Love III. Weir was two strokes
behind Love, hence the placement in the final group.
"Mike told me that it was every kid's dream to play in the last group at
Pebble Beach," Gretzky recalled. "But it was my worst nightmare."
Weir shot 68 and tied for third place behind Love and Tom Lehman. Gretzky
enjoyed the experience, but remembers the anxiety as much as anything. He
dreamed as a kid of being in the seventh game of a Stanley Cup final, not
in the final group of a PGA Tour event.
Still, Gretzky will come into the Nationwide tournament as a recent
winner.
He and his pro partner, Chris Nallen, won the pro-am last month at the
Nationwide's BMW Charity Pro-Am in Greer, S.C. Given the win, Gretzky
should be able to allay some of his anxiety.
But that probably won't happen. Gretzky said he's not comfortable playing
in front of people, and that "there's nothing worse than having a
three-foot putt in front of 100 people."
He'll have at least a few putts of that length and in front of more than
100 people. Wish him a tranquil mind and steady hands. The tournament host
will need them. |
|
