Mind Over Matter

The logic is impeccable. If you swing a baseball bat as a lefty you are, what, two or three feet closer to first base? This enables you to steal infield hits that would otherwise be routine outs if you can slap it to the left side.

Unfortunately in golf it matters little from what side you swing the club. You are not running anywhere. Yet Phil Mickelson does everything right-randed but swings as a lefty. I'm thinking of giving it a try after an afternoon of tearing up fairways with blunderbluss explosions of divots taken behind the ball.

Can there be a more exasperating experience than hitting a tee shot that is a work of art, the dimpled Titleist landing exactly where you want it, and then crashing the iron into the ground, spoiling what should have been a perfect chance for birdie, or if short, at least par?

Then the mind goes to work. It is filled with things you did wrong -- grip, posture, back swing, weight transfer, head moving.

And outside disruptions -- the clatter of geese in mating season (I couldn't think what else was in their walnut-sized brains); the haze over a view of the Manhattan skyline, where commerce was hopefully being conducted while the idle with a stick in their hands pondered a silly little spheroid in the outer reaches of the gentle, sloping borough of Queens; the realization that in 60 million years, or whatever, the sun will burn out and the earth will become a frozen ice ball. These things, too, race through the minds of golfers, noble creatures most of them, defying the gods with their simple game.

Made one birdie, one par, both on par threes, and played horrendously on numerous holes, too horrific to relate in front of women and children.

Miss Market has been so kind of late that I offered my birdie and par to her as a kind of sacrificial offering of thanksgiving. I know she is a jealous goddess and must be placated.

PALM jumped after hours on the RIMM news, and the NASDAQ is in the green for the year. Obama sounded upbeat in London. The jobs data tomorrow could be dire, but it is still considered a lagging indicator (aren't they all?). I'm breaking 100 next week.