Magical Realism
PROLOGUE
THE BACK YARD
MANITOBA - ONE HOLE - FALLWAY HOMES
Everything becomes impossibly still.
In this moment, time takes a breath and looks the other way, halting its goosestep toward the ultimate end. All there is, as I open my heart up and draw my weapon back, the blade rising above my right shoulder, is this tiny orb.
The moment before I impart myself onto the ball is a moment I can only find in golf.
Golf is nothing like life. Unlike the world, my golf ball is completely at the mercy of my intention. I approach, settle, think think think think, waggle, make sure, look away, then look back, and finally begin my backswing, loading all of the force I can load into that club, all the while staring at the ball so as to never change my focus.
When I finally reach the apex of my backswing, and if I'm doing it right, there's a moment where everything stands still. I forget my hands. I forget what's happening in my chest. My whole world is a white dimply sphere, and all the potential in the world about to rain down on it, from my hands, arms, shoulders, back. Heart.
My intent is pure, because it is at the height of potential. It isn't real yet. This is still the perfect shot, perfectly still, not yet faulty because it hasn't been born. There's no memory here to haunt this moment. No pain. Not yet. There is only the perfection of presence and potential.
Golf is the only way I know to control time. It happens in the millisecond of that focused backswing, right before the violence of intention. It also happens in a four-hour round, at the bottom of an extra-large bucket of range balls, or a short game practice session in my back yard. When I escape time, I escape memory. In that way, golf is an alchemy. A magick. I am a practicing magician. Not a salesman. A magician.
