GOLF : A New Grip Saves Owls, Eliminates a Dreaded Slice

I knew I had a problem the day I killed two owls.

The problem had been building for years. Usually it arrived quietly, silently stalking me and then seizing the most opportune moments to leap up and throttle me, ruining many an otherwise perfect day with its sinister hauntings.

And my friends only made the struggle worse. Instead of offering encouragement when this little piece of hell would visit, they often would shout things like Whoa! or Oh, my God! at the top of their lungs before snickering.

Then came that other word they always seemed to yell whenever the problem overwhelmed me. A word I hear ringing in my ears nearly every day, a word that has roused me from a sound sleep.

FORE!

The problem? The dark and chilling monster that raged?

The slice , that wicked, screeching left-to-right power ball that only glances at the fairway as it leaves the property with a whoosh, scorching the air as it makes a turbulent right turn and heads for the parking lot, or the woods, or the four elderly men standing two fairways away, minding their own business and certainly not expecting to have a tiny, rock-hard, white-dimpled missile bearing down on them from out of absolutely nowhere.

The owls? Well, fortunately they weren’t spotted owls. I would hate to think my faulty game of golf pushed an entire species to the brink of extinction, although in all honesty during my death struggles with the worst attacks of the slice I really would not have cared if my golf ball wiped out the spotted owls and the blue whales.

The owls I killed were red and green, respectively, and made of glass. They hung on thin ropes from the patio cover of a man named Louis something (it might have been Lewis something; he was screaming loudly and did not bother to spell it) who bought a condominium along the seventh fairway of the Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage outside Palm Springs.

The ball I hit left the airspace over the intended fairway with such force and speed that two of my playing partners that day never saw it. The third one did, however, immediately raising a hand to his face in a mock-shield gesture and belching out the word Whoaaaa! as it headed for the condos.

From 275 yards away, we heard the crash. When I arrived at the scene, Louis-Lewis was standing amid lots of red and green glass shards. The red glass pretty much matched his face. Swinging nearby were three other glass owls--the next of kin.

I apologized, which didn’t begin to solve anything. Louis-Lewis introduced himself, more or less, and then said something about my ancestry, which was, coming from a stranger, remarkably accurate.

Then I walked away.

For the 20 years I have played golf, the slice was as much a part of my game as hoping the people in my foursome don’t play very well. It was horrible. It was frightening.

And now, it is gone.

Maybe.

Keith Thykeson, a teaching pro at the Woodland Hills Country Club, described the malady and its cure.

“The reason people slice is that they start the club down with the hands and arms instead of the middle body, the hips and legs,” he said. “The cure begins by standing with your feet together, hitting soft 7-irons. And try to hit the inside part of the ball. Not the back of it. If you get the inside part of the ball, then you’re learning how to swing the club inside, which is where it’s supposed to be.”

Joe Buttitta, a teaching pro at the Westlake Golf Club and the former golf coach at Cal State Northridge, showed me the reasons for this illness. And he offered a cure.

“The key is to release the wrists,” he said. “Most golfers play with a tight grip, which locks up the wrists. And the club face cannot hit the ball from the inside this way.”

In 15 minutes, Buttitta had my death-grip relaxed. (Hey, you rip-slice 2,000 golf balls into condominiums for 20 years and then talk to me about relaxing.) And startlingly, drives that had forever gone sharp right went straight. Very straight. Five, 10, 20, 30 of them in a row.

I wouldn’t call it a miracle.

I’ll let Ralph Nathan, another of Buttitta’s students, do it for me.

“It was like a miracle,” said Nathan, a retired teacher who began playing a year ago and said he sliced nearly every shot he ever took, on the practice range and the golf course, until Buttitta healed him. “It was like a gift from God,” he said.

SoCal Amateur: Among those qualifying this week for the Southern California Amateur, to be played at Fairbanks Ranch Country Club from Friday to Sunday were: Mike Turner (Woodland Hills CC), David Solomon (El Caballero CC), James Forsyth and Mike Nubel (Valencia CC) and Buz Greene (Saticoy CC).

Pros: Ron Hinds of Westlake Village finished second in Monday’s Golden State Tour stop at the Montebello Country Club, shooting a superb round of 66 but he was blitzed by a course-record 62 by Neale Smith of Fullerton. Third was Tim Hogarth of Van Nuys (67).

Juniors: Darren Angel of Northridge shot a two-under-par 70 on Monday and came back with a 72 Tuesday to win the Southern California Junior championships at the Redlands Country Club. Angel’s 142 was a stroke better than Ben Garner of Mission Viejo.

Runner-up: Corby Segal of Burbank, a junior at Cal State Northridge, finished second in the L.A. City men’s golf championships earlier this month, losing on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff to 36-year-old Pete Wilman of Manhattan Beach.

The two shot even-par scores of 288 in the 72-hole tournament at the Rancho Park Golf Course.