A Journey With Cerebral Palsy

I have heard the stories and sometimes seen the evidence. Golfers practicing their putting stroke inside during the winter. If you look on Amazon my suspicion is, you could find all kinds of indoor putting machines. Targets that could be set on the carpet for the golfer to putt toward. Many of which probably have a mechanism to send the golf ball back in your direction, if you hit the target. I have seen commercials lately of a golfer putting across the carpeted floor into a drinking glass. My guess is there are all kinds of things that could be used to represent a golf hole, indoors. I have always found the indoor practice of putting to be nonsensical. Sure, from time to time, I have been known to grab my putter and dig a couple golf balls out of my bag. Sending them back and forth across the carpet of some room in the house. The concept never lasted more than a day or two. I couldn’t equate the carpet to a real life green on the golf course, so I didn’t understand how it could be helping. Plus, I often got bored with the whole concept pretty quickly. For some reason, my thought process about the concept changed during this winter. I pulled out my putter with a couple golf balls and they have remained in my room. Surprising me more than I could explain, the impact was immediately felt in my first day of golf, this season. 

My ability to be a good putter of the golf ball has seemed to get worse with age. The last time I really felt good about my ability to putt was in my teens. Spending my high school years working at a golf course provided me the ability to play golf, often. Where I spent, my summers taking full advantage of the opportunity. Back then, playing with such consistency, naturally gave me the chance to spend a lot of time putting. As I found myself on many greens with the number of holes, I would play during the summer. I also think my young nerves could have played a role in my success on the greens, as a younger person. I was still hampered with the shaky nerves of my cerebral palsy, but the trembling in my wrists and hands, might not have been as prevalent. Even into my 20s I was still playing a good amount of golf and though my putting skill might have dropped off as little, it certainly didn’t drop significantly. However, since those years, it has felt like the trembling in my hands has increased. Especially, when lining up to hit a shorter putt. When my golf ball creeps within a couple feet of the hole, I can feel myself becoming nervous. It has always felt to me like those shorter distance putts, take a little bit more fine motor control to execute well. Leaving me much more comfortable over a putt of longer distance. 

The longer the putt the more enjoyment I get out of hitting it. Disappearing from the putt of length seems to be any worry of trembling in my hands. I have the ability to strike a putt from distance with more force. Without the concern of the length of my backstroke or the firmness of my strike at the golf ball. It feels like I can simply let my arms swing and my hands almost always remain quiet. The longer length putts always provide me with a comfortable and confident feeling over the golf ball. Maybe because I rarely feel the pressure to make those putts of a longer length. Because making a long putt on the golf course always feels like a bonus. Most people seem to experience shock and excitement, when they watch a long putt fall into the hole. However, most often those long putts come up short of the golf hole or go racing past. Leaving the golfer with a shorter putt, often one expected to be made. These are the type of putts that have seemed to give me trouble. When I might have hit a good putt from some length, but missed in by a few feet. Now, in order to keep my good golf score moving forward, I need to make the shorter one. For so many years, my heart rate starts to increase when I have watched my golf ball come to rest, a couple feet from the hole. This past winter finally found me trying to do something, to ease that increased heart rate. I just didn’t know if it would work. 

With the coming of a new year, this last January. An idea came to mind about a new way of doing my writing and reading. I saw something that I didn’t really know existed, a rolling laptop desk. The idea of trying one out in my room sounded like a good concept. Leaving me to believe I could work on the small desk, while watching some television. When I got the desk around the first of the year, I found it to fit ideally in the corner of my bedroom. Giving me somewhere to work, removed from any kind of office setting. However, while I’m in the midst of doing some writing or reading. I often like to break up the monotony of being seated in my chair. Standing up to move around can often bring to mind my next sentence. It can also help me ponder momentarily, a passage I might have just read. During those first couple weeks of working with the laptop desk, I found myself itching for something to help with the quick breaks. Something I could stand up and do, for just a minute or two. Helping me better formulate a thought pattern that might need a moments rumination. That’s when the thought surfaced to grab my putter out of my golf bag, with a couple golf balls. In actuality, I grabbed an old putter I had used, and got a couple golf balls. From my golf bag. I brought my treasures up to my room. Every few lines or so, whether reading or writing. I found myself standing up and grabbing the putter resting against my wall. I would putt the golf balls back and forth along the carpet, before sitting back down, with a better formulated thought.

Striking a putt might be the most challenging aspect of golf for my disability. It has always felt like the portion of the game requiring the most activation of fine motor skills to complete. The faster the green speed on a golf course, the more delicate a putt must be hit. With the challenges of cerebral palsy, it can sometimes feel impossible. Especially showing itself on a shorter putt, one I might feel more pressure to make. I have historically found my hands and fingers spasm, as I start the back swing of the putter. Resulting in the putter blade shaking and the contact sending the golf ball on an awkward path. Or, the trembling of my fingers might happen with surprise, just as my putter impacts the golf ball. The ending result being much the same, as the putter blade turns, and the ball shoots along an unintended journey. Both instances causing the putt to be missed and frustration with my unsteady hands. I simply didn’t believe the situation could be helped. That I would always experience standing over a putt. Worrying more about a spasm or tremble in my hands and less about the actual putt, itself. However, something happened this winter, which has seemed to change things in my putting. When I grabbed my putter out of my golf bag and brought in up into my bedroom. The intention in doing so, certainly wasn’t to make an attempt at fixing my trembling hands. But, it might have helped the challenge. 

Over the first couple months of the winter. I placed an old putter up against the front wall of my bedroom. Just under my television with two golf balls sitting beside. Like I will probably do after another few minutes of typing. I would get out of my seat every so often and walk over to grab the putter. Taping the golf ball out from near the same wall. I stuck a couple of putts toward the small laptop desk I’m currently writing from. Then, I would walk over to where the two golf balls came to rest, striking them back in the opposite direction, towards the bedroom door. Just in case of curiosity, the carpet breaks toward the front wall of the bedroom. Not having much experience putting on carpets, I have no idea whether that is normal. Does the carpet consistently break toward the wall? Anyway, the number of putts I would hit on each of my breaks varied. Probably depending on the thoughts going through my mind, regarding whatever I might be working on. Sometimes it would be a quick break. Hitting each of the golf balls down towards the desk and back, just once. Other times, I might take four trips down and back, working on my putting. It probably depended most of the time, on finding that next couple sentences. While, I was using this little activity to stretch my legs and think. Something else interesting was taking place, simultaneously. 

I suppose inside of this kind of situation; two things can be happening. Because, the drill was helping my mind gain some quick clarity on my next idea. It was also helping me play around with better ways of striking my putt. Over the months, I started tinkering a little and found some improved ways of striking the golf ball, or at least I thought. There would be no way of knowing until I actually played golf. I found moving the golf ball back in my stance seemed to be helping me make a better strike. So, each time I stood up to the golf ball, I positioned the ball more in line with my right foot. Instead of having it lined up with the middle of my stance, or toward the front. It also became clear that if I focused on a specific spot on the golf ball, like a marking of some kind, that was around my intended point of contact. I again, seemed to make better contact with the golf ball. Discovering these two little tidbits in the first few weeks of this idea. I continued practicing them, each time I took a break, and hit some putts along the carpet. The final piece I began to notice was the quietness in my hands. The spasms in my wrists and fingers I can so often feel when striking a putt, seemed to disappear. Which, could be attributed to the lack of consequences when putting back and forth across carpet. 

The real test to determine if anything in my putting changed would be actually playing golf. Being out on the course with real consequences attached to the putting result would show me a lot. The question would be, experiencing whether the trembling in my hands subsided, when striking a putt. I didn’t really anticipate it making much of a difference. It seemed to me, putting in my room would be so dissimilar to putting on an actual green. I figured the struggles with my putting would show up just the same. My first round of golf played after putting in my room, took place towards the end of April. To my surprise, there was a difference in the way I struck my putts, on that day. The stillness in my hands when making my putting stroke could not be denied. It was something I didn’t really register until I was a few holes into my day of golf. instead of hitting three putts on many of the greens, which would occur during many of my days playing golf, most of the greens were only involving two putts. The first of my putts would come to rest much closer to the hole than previously. Leading to easier second putts that could be tapped into the cup. The nervous energy and trembling I often find in my hands when putting, had all but disappeared. The little activity I had created to take small breaks from typing, was actually helping my putting skills. 

I found this to be an interesting situation. For the reason that I don’t think it occurs with most things involving my disability. Many of my physical activities don’t seem to show this kind of improvement through repetition. A lot of the things I do on a daily basis using my hands, don’t often get easier. However accidental it might have been, putting the golf ball back and forth on my bedroom carpet worked. For whatever the reason, all of those strikes improved my control over the putter. When it was taken onto the golf course, my feel was better than it had been in years. The ability for me to judge the distance I had to hit a putt, went soaring upward. There was comfort in my ability to hit the putt in the direction I wanted it to travel. The anxiety I would normally experience when my first putt would settle a few feet from the hole, was greatly reduced. Giving me the ability to walk up and strike the second putt without the trembling in my hands. For the first time in countless years, I felt like a good putter, again. Using all the findings from working with the putter in my room, like placing the golf ball back further in my stance, and concentrating on a specific point on the golf ball. It has been awesome to, almost accidently, improve a skill I value. I look forward to watching how my putting holds up during the remainder of the golf season.