Charlie’s Corner: Rymer Returns To Tournament Golf

Welcome to Charlie's Corner, the blog home for Golf Channel analyst Charlie Rymer. A lifelong Myrtle Beach golfer, Rymer, with his characteristic wit and unique perspective, will be weighing in on all things for Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday.

I’m playing a golf tournament next week.  It’s a four-day event, and I have to keep my own score. 

No scramble.  No best ball.  No partner of any kind.  This will be the first time in two years that I’ve done that.  And I’m TERRIFIED! 

This isn’t an event that’s going to show up on TV anywhere (and thank God for that) but it certainly has my attention.  It’s the Adidas Golf International Pro-Am in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  I’m the pro part of the equation. 

You see, my game got to where it wasn’t so good at one point.  In fact, it was terrible.  I had a physical injury (wrist) and that’s what I blamed more poor play on.  But the fact of the matter is that my wrist got bad AFTER my game got bad.  The wrist was just a convenient scapegoat. 

I actually contracted the yips with my driver.  That’s the reason I’m sitting in a Golf Channel cubicle writing this blog right now.  Lack of confidence with the driver isn’t much fun for a man who feeds his family hitting a golf ball. 

And I can remember the day I came down with the malady.  I was playing a first round US Open qualifier in Columbia, S.C., in the spring of 1998.  I had lost my PGA Tour card the previous season and had not been able to retain it at Q-School. 

I missed by a shot at Q-School finals and thus was the number one qualifier for the Nationwide Tour in 1998.  The early part of the season had not been kind to me but I was working on something new.  I thought I was on the right track. 

I stood up on that first tee and was confident.  I aimed just inside the left rough cut line with my trusty 3-wood.  This was my “go to” club and my “go to” shot had always been a penetrating left to right slider.  I could visualize the ball starting low and then rising slightly to the right and then falling gently to the center of the fairway. 

I knew in my backswing that something wasn’t quite right.  The feel was different.  The contact was different.  I looked up into that window of space that had always occupied my golf ball.  It wasn’t there.  I saw something flash to the left in my field of vision. 

There was a ball but it couldn’t be mine!  This ball was curving to the left. 

Panic. 

At least the ball was going a long way the wrong way.  It took one hop and came to rest in a flower bed well outside the boundary markers.  I never recovered from that tee shot.  Not that day.  Not that year.  Not ever. 

Its memory is entrenched in the fiber of my very soul.  If I ever write a book I’m going to title it “The Day My Slice Started Hooking.” 

I think my back is starting to ache.  Maybe I’ll make it to Puerto Vallarta but have “spasms” that prevent me from competing. 

Nope. 

I’m going tee it up.  I think I’m fixed.  I taped an instructional show with Sean Foley (Tiger’s new guy) a few weeks back.  Just being around him fixed me.  He used some big fancy words and talked about Sir Isaac Newton and Sam Snead. 

I’ve been healed!  Or maybe not.