Thoughts about Tennis Tradition...

[don_budge]

don_budge: Performance Analyst, cannot account for his own performance

So where was I? Or better yet, where am I? Round and round we go, where we end up nobody knows. If we cannot explain our own existence then what right to we have to speculate about the existence of others? These are questions. ANSWER THE QUESTION...YOU JERK!!! In my best John McEnroe reverberating voice. Is that even a word? Did I just make that up? Reverberating? It came clean of spell check...therefore it must be.

I found myself in a bit of a strange mood recently. Something wasn't sitting well with me. I mean...it could be a whole host of things. Could it be an excess of EMR in the air? Electro Magnetic Radiation? Are we all getting a bit frazzled? But keep in mind...the moon. The moon has been waxing and last night it climaxed in a gushing full moon. Full blown lunacy? That could explain it. A combination...EMR and full moon equals don_budge in a quandry? Eerie. It felt strange. I found myself in the woods with the wolf asking myself...are we real people? Out in nature all these years. Civilisation lives in another neighbourhood allowing me the freedom from the commotion. Out in the country...there is only motion. The birds. The wind. Animals. Peace of mind? Or a recipe for madness? Are we real people? Is this how God envisioned us a couple of thousand years down the road? Cell phones. A trip to the grocery store. Driving around in automobiles. Is this for real? Now we are stuck in our computers, living out a virtual reality. Information coming from all different directions and angles. What the fuck is real? What about that service motion of "The Tsitsipatti Kid"?

Yesterday started pretty normal. Woke up wondering how I do it. Crawling out of bed trying to get the old body in motion. The first few steps and the trip down the stairs are really tentative. Greeted at the bottom by The Wolf and The Lab. Both eager to begin there day. Happy to see me as if it had been an eternity. Puntzie goes out the back door and I go out the front with York on a leash. Breakfast as usual. The very same thing every day for the past umpteen years. You see...I never get bored. A bit of "news" on the internet. Bad news of course. Then to the stable. Led the horses down to their field. Return to the stable to grab a load of hay and lug it out to the field. Return again to grab a bucket of water in each hand to fill up their water. The wolf is howling in the yard as I type now. He's feeling it too. Lunacy...madness of the full moon. Howling forlornly. I could howl back at him. He would understand.

After the water drill, I clean the two stalls. Every day the same. I make it nice for them. Meticulously making their bed for the next night. Once I finished their beds, I came inside and quickly changed clothes and I am off to town for supplies. Groceries and animal feed. Dogs and horses. I changed from my farm chic to town. City slicker. Golf pants and shoes. Golf sweater. I am headed to the golf club on the way home. I get there and it's the usual. Take a couple of hundred swings. My golf partner shows up. Interesting guy. Adopted from Korea by Swedish parents. He's a performer. Tough competitor. Golf, tennis and floor ball. Billiards, fishing...you name it. Business up and running on its own while he ducks out every day to play golf. Quite a guy. A real performer in my book. We are talking and trying to understand just what it is we are trying to do. Making perfect out of imperfect game. Golf is a real enigma. I remember saying to him that the real mystery is in the transition from the backswing to forwards swing. I wasn't even pretending to understand it. But that doesn't stop me from trying. Patrick left and I went over the practice green and more futility. The short shots are even more madness than the long swing. I left the course tired. Knowing full well that I had a session with the coach I hired last week.

What prompted me to hire a coach was the sand shot. Bunker play. The professional golfers prefer to be in the sand than in the thick grass. It is only a technique to them. There is no mystery. But if you don't understand the technique, as I don't/didn't, the bunker is a nightmare. Just waiting to happen. You play the course to avoid them and the more you play to avoid them...the more you find them. Not understanding the technique is the results tend to be disastrous. Turning a routine par or bogey into a multiple bogey. The perfectionist's nightmare. Armageddon. The Apocalypse. It hurts. It wounds the pride. The only thing that saves you is the knowledge that you don't have the knowledge. So I hired Andreas. A child prodigy. He broke and owned the course record at the club when he was sixteen. He shot 66. But then it went wrong. He was afflicted with the yips. A strange malady. Unable to perform simple movements under pressure. Or even no pressure. The pressure comes from within. The pressure to perform. Coming from me...a Performance Analyst. Ask me about the Stefanos Tsitsipas serve under pressure. It didn't work. You wonder why.

I came home after the session at the club. Already tired. Now I was anticipating my session with the coach. Really dreading not being able to perform. The first session was basically a failure in the sense that I was unable to come even close to hitting the ball out of the sand. I could go into the technique but I won't. This little post is about performance. The mystery of what makes us tick. In my anticipation I thought of nourishment and tried to consume something to stabilise myself. I eat the same thing virtually every day. No surprises. I tried to relax and get some rest. But I've been uneasy the past couple of days. The moon is waxing. Full blown working on the tide of my bodies water. Pulling me apart. My mind pulling in two directions. The battle in my brain over my left and my right raging. I'm trying to get ready to do the impossible under less than favourable conditions. Tearing myself apart. I get a letter from the Swedish tax authorities. There looking into my stupid fucking business trying to extract blood from a turnip. I've got the IRS too! They want their portion of flesh. The letter set off another series of action. Calls to the tax preparer in Sweden. A call to the person at the Swedish tax authorities. Get the picture?

So I set off for the course. It's another course in another direction. I drive through the Swedish countryside as if it is another world. I've made this trip maybe a dozen times. It's still not familiar. It is difficult to get your bearings in another country. Another world. The drive is serene however. The drone of American politics in a distant universe. The CD player doesn't work in my 2004 Alfa Romero. The engine is sweet. Humming quietly with the road. The countryside. Full moon visible in my rear view. In broad daylight. Just to let me know he's there. Mr. Moon. I make all the right turns. I have made wrong ones before. You have to be vigilant. A wrong turn takes you nowhere and you might drift for a long time before you realise you have lost your way. But I make it. Billingen Golf Club. I'm early. Trying to get prepared. I buy a bucket of balls. The thought occurs to me how expensive a bucket of practice balls cost at the range. I make my way to the practice green and wonder how to get the parts moving.

I begin by tossing the balls at the bucket underhand as this is sort of the motion and the tempo you should have with the short pitch shots and the chipping. Then I begin to use the club on the balls but my timing is sporadic which means the motion is unsound and insecure. I can feel it. It is like impending doom before you even attempt the shot. I am not even aiming at a target on the green. Ugh. More torture. That spastic feeling in the hands. The dreaded yips. I keep trying with various amounts of success or lack of failure. Depending how you want to look at it. Either way it feels like crap. I'm not going to tippy toe around this. I suck. But, on the other hand, I don't quit either. So I continue. Getting ready for my appointment. Andreas comes over and finishing with another group and we chat a bit about what I want to accomplish. My goal is to get my feel back. No need to be standing over the golf ball thinking about what the hell you want to do. Tearing the swing down into a million moving parts. That is a recipe for disaster. I want to feel. So we begin and sure enough the hands are not behaving. Keep in mind that my fatigue level and the full moon have me in a trance like state. Andreas give me a cue. The track of the backswing. Immediately things start to synch. I am pitching to a flag about twenty or twenty five meters away. Earlier the balls were all over the place. A random dispersion. Faulty mechanics and the inability to produce the same motion twice in a row. But the track of the back swing starts to synch the rhythm of the swing. A delicate swing with a 54 degree wedge. Short grass. You have to pretty much hit it clean. It begins to be repeatable and the dispersion of the balls improves by at least a hundred percent.

[don_budge]

May God Bless America...

[doctorhl]

You guys make we wish I had kept my white, cable, v- neck sweaters. I even bought a canvas bucket hat to replace my old Bancroft one, but I couldn’t find one in white canvas.

[don_budge]

If, for some reason communication breaks down in the next few days...rest assured, we will meet again on the other side. ...don_budge

[don_budge]

Thanks don_budge! Happy New Year to you too.

After watching some of the beautiful videos recently posted in another thread, I'm resolving to play a little bit more like I learnt to in the '80s and to hell with the consequences.

Philosophically it makes sense. The push for the progressiveness takes things to the edge of the abyss. Modernism? When is enough...enough? So take it back a bit when fundamentals were the rule of the day. You've seen some John McEnroe lately. He was even a blast from the past with his reverence for Rod Laver. His one grip for every shot. I saw a bit of that in your service motion. Dial it back. To hell with the consequences? Interesting. I like the sound of it. A certain belligerence for the latest and the greatest. Yes...come to think of it. To hell with the consequences. Well played. Bring back tradition.

[glacierguy]

Thanks don_budge! Happy New Year to you too.

After watching some of the beautiful videos recently posted in another thread, I'm resolving to play a little bit more like I learnt to in the '80s and to hell with the consequences.

[don_budge]

Best of luck to everyone in 2021! I have a feeling we are going to need it. Two days in and how's it feel. A bit iffy?

[don_budge]

As midnight rolls over the planet in a stealth of darkness. As the journey to the end of the night becomes the end of a year. The year was 2020...soon to be in the rearview. Get ready for 2021 as the previous year has not shot its load yet. There is undoubtably more to come. Can you fathom what it will be?

My resolution is the same year in and year out. Stay in motion. Keep moving whenever possible. Exhaust the day and do my best. This will be the year I shoot my age...in golf. Sixty-seven.

Thank you Lord for all of your blessings. Thank you for your Perfect Son. Forgive me.

Happy New Year!

[don_budge]

The Spirit of Christmas is Upon Us...

"'Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.' For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son" John 3:14-18

Christmas Day 2020. What an incredible day. Time to reflect on a year that is unparalleled to those of us living on the planet. Not to be overly dramatic because historically, maybe it wasn't such a big deal. Maybe more like "much ado about nothing". After all...there have been real plagues that have wiped out significant populations. I know this one is not over yet but so far there are at least two sides of this argument. There have been years where wars have decimated entire populations. So what is the big deal about 2020? What happened that was so horrible? People die...we come and we go. That's a thing that I know.

So much has been made of the Coronavirus. Covid-19 they call it. Do you realise that the death rates of both the United States and Sweden have actually gone down from the previous year? It seems incongruent with the fear porn that has been pushed all year long. People die. Seven thousand a day in the United States. Four hundred a day in New York City alone. It is a fact of life...no one here gets out alive. Maybe in the next year we will get some level of understanding out of this experience. Maybe when it is all said and done the numbers will begin to make some sense. The statistics. The devil is in the numbers.

God gave his only Son. His perfect Son. I have been thinking deeply on that lately. PERFECT. Perfect is perfect. It is even hard to fathom. If Jesus had chosen to be a golfer he would score 18 and any golf course in the world. A hole in one on every shot. That is perfect in the world of golf. It's hard to imagine. If Jesus had chosen to be a tennis player he would beat Roger Federer any day of the week and twice on Sunday 6-0, 6-0, 6-0. Golden sets all. Not a single point to Roger. Not only that...but aces on every single serve. Serve return winners on every single Federer serve. That is perfect.

Perfection. In the human form. Never rude. Never impatient. Always kind. Never greedy. Always generous. Never impatient. Always loving. Perfect...it goes on and on. Infinitely perfect. He came for one purpose only. To save the world. The more I think of it, the more it boggles my mind. The more I think of it, the more I realise how far from perfection I am and how futile my efforts have been. I can only think of one thing to say in response...Thank you Lord. Thank you for your Son. Forgive me.

Merry Christmas to each and everyone of you! God Bless you all. Thank you Lord.

[don_budge]

Wow, that's one hell of a recommendation. You had my respect anyway, but I'm still impressed.

Thank you GG. I wouldn't trade this simple letter of recommendation for all of the USPTA certifications in the world. If you only imagine the fun and experience I had in the two summers I spent in the presence of this magnificent human being. I ate breakfast with him at times. Lunch as well. He took the entire staff to a sea food restaurant where I sat next to him where he told me the story of his other worldly match against Gottfried Von Cramm. Falling face flat on match point after he hit a winning forehand that he never saw land.

Tennis....Cerebral Gladiators. Golf.....”No Exit”

Thank you doctorhi. Imagine golf being even more cerebral than tennis. All the time in between shots to think and ponder your decision for the next shot. But such is the beauty of both sports that they test the individual on physical, intellectual, mental, psychological and emotional levels. Toss in a Spiritual level too.

God's gift to mankind in terms of recreation. I see tennis in the realm of the finite. Those spiritual lines. The metaphysical design of the court. From an airplane up above these lines will never change in all the world. To fly over and looking down to spot a group of eight courts your mind starts to wander imagining all of the games being played out below. But those lines. The ultimate line of demarcation. Outside the lines it is out...inside or only partially on the line, it's in. The moral ramifications are huge.

When looking down at a golf course you realise that nowhere in the world is there a golf course that is identical to another one. This is the realm of the infinite. There are no lines on a golf course such as those on a tennis court. Sure there are out of bounds. But there is a obstacle course built into the design. The player plays against the course from the tee to a distant hole in the ground. Anything can happen in between. One begins to think about luck and fate. Coincidence and destiny on new planes.

Ah...in the Kingdoms of Golf and Tennis there lie many a great champion and even more disappointments and dreams crushed. Such is life...is it not?

[doctorhl]

Tennis....Cerebral Gladiators. Golf.....”No Exit”

[glacierguy]

Wow, that's one hell of a recommendation. You had my respect anyway, but I'm still impressed.

[don_budge]

[don_budge]

I wrote a post on my high school website. 50 year reunion hanging in the balance. 2022...I wonder where the world will be in 2022.

You guys have heard it all before. Here's another angle in the workings of the mind of don_budge. Begin transmission below:

I believe that tennis and golf are God's gift to mankind in terms of recreation. It is no coincidence that these two endeavours have been big pursuits of mine in my quest for perfection on this earthly plane. On certain given days I can honestly say that I was perfect. I played to my true potential. I reached that level in tennis more often than I did in golf as I took my first golf lesson at the Dearborn Country Club at the ripe old age of forty. Try being perfect without the guns of youth behind you. It is my greatest challenge...in sports.

The ripe old age of forty. Somehow I became obsessed with that Fyodor Dostoyevsky quote from his epic novel called "The Devils". Truly his greatest work. People tell me that they have read "Crime and Punishment" or "The Brothers Karamazov" and I think to myself, Dostoyevsky wannabe. Read "The Devils" or "The Possessed" or "The Demons" depending upon the translation. One of the main characters gets a chapter in the book devoted to his experience with his sense of the Devil's presence. But the quote, ah yes, the quote. I digress, per usual.

"The second half of a mans life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half."- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

If you consider that the lucky man, or woman, might life to the ripe old age of forty...at forty you are in the locker room of life. Considering a strategy for the second half. After reflecting on the first half. What's the score? I know the score...trust me. I spent a lifetime exploring that question, what is the score? It's a good question. Don't you think so? But anyways, the point is, there is always a point although most of the time cleverly disguised, I quit tennis and put it in the rear view mirror and began to pursue golf at the precise moment that the worm turned from the first half of life to the second. In hindsight, I think that was pretty clever of me. Although perhaps it wasn't so conscious. Or was it? Coincidence or chance? Destiny or a crap shoot? Fate or chaos?

But here's my point, if I really have one and I am not just putting on airs, God's gift to mankind in terms of recreation. Tennis and golf are disciplines. Esoteric arts as it is. Esoteric as in, intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest. That's me. The earth is a ball. A ball in the game. In the game of Life. The only game where the object of the game is to learn the rules. Am I making any sense at all? This is one of the easier subjects that I am going to address, by the way. The one below..."The Shaman's Doorway" is next up. That is going to be a bit more complicated.

In or around 1976 I read in "Psychology Today" a psychological profile of the two games. Hang on to your seats. Your hats. This is serious stuff. Tennis is a game where the two opponents are symbolically trying to castrate each other. The racquets represent rapiers and the balls represent the players testicles and the two go at it as if they are trying to disengage each other from their balls. Ouch! And it is true. The higher you go in the game the truer this becomes. I can tell you. From the time you introduce yourself at the beginning of the match, and we used to ironically start it off with a handshake before we got down to the dirty business of trying to "castrate" each other. You get a whiff of your opponent and you are already sizing him up. Assessing with every sense in your being at your disposal...where is his weaknesses that you will endeavour to exploit him at every given opportunity. Where can I nick away at him. Drawing some blood. Weakening his resistance. Where are the strengths where you must respect him but not be afraid of attacking as well. He is bound to get some shots in that you must absorb. Stemming the flow. It's pretty damn visceral, I can attest to that. I remember feeling really good after a match if I could say to myself...I made him wish his mother never had him. Maybe it was Jimmy Connors that said that. I cannot remember. Looking back I think it pretty amusing, pretty funny, that I had such a good time all my life pursuing this game to perfection. Serious stuff. Lessons to be learned. Enough said. It wasn't always pretty.

Golf is an entirely different matter. According to "Psychology Today" back in the day of 1976, when there actually were magazines...golf is a game where the contestant is trying to avoid committing suicide. Man against the golf course. What a paradox. No opponent. Just an obstacle course with a little hole at the end. Being so fortunate as to being a student of both art forms and a teacher as well, I cannot help but admire the irony and the diversity of both games as well as their similarities. When teaching either, I always point out to the student the attributes of the other game. I like to say that tennis is...golf on the run. But this business of trying to avoid committing suicide is just downright diabolical. Coincidentally, several of the characters in "The Devils" either commit suicide or contemplate it and the ramifications of it. But as any golfer knows, you have to play all eighteen holes. It's a journey much as life is. I found that I was very aware of this suicide notion and I am glad that I was forty when I started to embark on the path to "avoid committing suicide" as it may just make for a gentler landing in the end. At the end of the night. Plus, there is no telling how I would have reacted when I was younger and full of notions of perfection. The anger. I digress again...fooey.

So as you progress in the game, you might just string a few pars in a row and think to yourself, "boy, isn't this great?" Well, no sooner does that little thought enter your noodle, you find yourself quadruple bogeying the next hole. Quickly the blood begins to boil. Ok...you start again. Over and over you fail, until one day you reach hole number ten and you are even par after nine. Half way home. Guess what...a triple bogey followed by a train of bogeys. The dreaded bogey train. Once more...derailed. Sitting in your car after the end of the aborted mission on the golf course, the thoughts start to drift to the barn and the rafter where you get a rope and...you get the picture. Ah...getting closer though. So thirty rounds down the road you are standing on the tee at seventeen at one under par and you are thinking fatal thoughts. You cannot help yourself. You are human and it is the human condition. If I can just make two pars in a row I am in at one under. My God...guess what. Bogey...bogey. Fuck! The elusive even par round is tantalisingly just out of reach. You can almost taste it. You get the picture. Golf is like that. Sure it is.

So just a couple of more things. Regards the letter of recommendation that is the subject of this little story. It is dated post summer of '73. I spent two summers at the Don Budge Tennis Camp and as a result the man himself, Don Budge, blessed me with this momento of my checkered past. I'm laughing at myself. A glorious experience to be in the company of such a profound and great gentleman. Mr. Budge was the first man to win the "Grand Slam" of tennis. Winning the four major titles in 1937 at the U. S. Open, Wimbledon, the French Open and the Australian Open. I believe that he actually traveled by boat to accomplish this. A beautiful man, every day he came dressed in all white tennis clothes looking like some immaculate blast out of the past and you never would have thought him capable, from observing him, that he might be capable of castrating a fellow human being. You never know what lurks below. That's all I can say. My alter ego just happens to be don_budge and he is a prolific writer of tennis and other things on the website tennisplayer.net. I will never forget Don Budge and how kind he was to the somewhat wild kid from Dearborn, Michigan. He took me under his wing. Taught me to fly.

One last thing. It's always one last thing isn't it, that somehow turns into two or three or who knows how many last things. What does GOLF mean? You are just going to absolutely love this little pearl. GOLF means...it's an acronym. It means...Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden. It's a very old Scottish game and women were not allowed in the clubhouse for a very long time. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a golf course that still abides to this sort of thing. What's the harm? Boys just want to have fun! Commence fire but just remember. I am only the messenger.

[don_budge]

Sunny and 42 Fahrenheit...one more shot!

Well the weather being what it is...fickle like all of my ex-girlfriends. Married twice now and divorced 17 times. But anyways...had a nice chat with an older Swedish fellow who just happened to walk by the range where I was the only one practicing. Like it has been for the last four weeks since the course closed for regular play. I collected approximately 60 range balls a few weeks ago in a bucket. So I find a dry area out on the range...when I say dry it isn't really dry. It is just less wet. The area is long enough where I can hit pitching wedges, 9 and 8 irons. Forty of fifty swings. I take a dozen ProV1's (Titleist golf ball) and hit them in one direction, go collect them and hit them back again. Repeat two or three times. But the balls that I collected on the range I put in a bucket and go back to the tees on the range where there are some mats still outside to hit off of. I hit these balls with my driver or 3-wood after I am done with the irons. I hit them all out into a area in the range that is dry enough to go and collect them next time I go to the club. Get it? I am not sure if I have captured the picture. The point is...I think like Tiger Woods. The competition is done with the golf for the winter. I am still trying to iron out the friction in the swing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8nZeZ2xCtc

A superb explanation of the left arm. Arm against the ped muscle...figure 7...rolling the left arm over. I worked it out for several days in the living room while my wife protested against me swinging in the house. Took the ideas out to the range. Very, very interesting results. It's not like you can go and play indoor golf although I understand that there is some new facility where you can actually play against a screen with a computer generated course in town. I am going to check it out.

Ah...so simple. Using the left arm as a left handed backhand. Gee...I can do that. The right side is hitting a right handed forehand...or throwing underhanded. Gee...I can do that too. It's an easy game! Not! This idea of the figure seven is a very good one for a tennis backhand thought. Anybody? Nobody? Very few survivors left on the forum these days. That's ok. Last one out please shut out the light.