This Should Work

I spent a few hours at the driving range this weekend hoping to improve my golf swing. The first ten or twelve shots were all over the place-slicing to the left, hooking right, swing and miss, dribbling off the tee and going 10 yard, etc.

I paused for moment to watch what others at the driving range were doing and tried to mimic what I saw-that didn’t help. I tried the Ricky Bobby thing-no good. I getting frustrated, my hands were starting to hurt, and my swing was moving more grass and dirt than golf ball.

Then I hit one far and straight (about 175yds), then another, and another. I started to realize one consistent thing with all my good shots-nothing. Not nothing like ‘not one thing was the same,’ but nothing like ‘every good swing felt like nothing.’ Which reminded me a line from Shakespeare’s MacBeth:

it is a tale/
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/
Signifying nothing.

Well… truth be told I actual thought of ESPN’s Kenny Mayne who during baseball highlights would use this line on strikeouts.

ANYWAYS, I think that this phrase applies to golfing (or at least my golf swing). The “tale” is the game of golf, “[t]old by an idiot” refer to those who play the game (like myself), “full of sound and fury” breaks down like this: the “sound” is the club head hitting the golf ball; the “fury” is the golf swing.

And the question “what does it mean to signify nothing?” The answer: it means a perfect golf swing.

Now you’ve got an idea of what it’s like to be married to an English scholar- it all comes back to close interpertation of the text, even in golf.

And yes, I know this line is said by MacBeth after he’s told about his wife’s death, but isn’t great literature supposed reach beyond it’s own context? So if anyone wants to take a crack at how Faulkner’s Quentin in The Sound and The Fury is a metaphor for a beautiful golf shot ending up in a water hazard, be my guest.

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