By Michael Mattingly | August 2, 2026
Friday evening found me doing what many middle-aged golfers eventually do after work: firing up the grill, settling into a lawn chair next to my wife with a cold beer, and letting a conversation wander.
My friend Ian and I were conversing over a drink (or two).
Ian has reached that wonderful stage of life where he has absolutely zero interest in pretending. He loves his wife, spoils his cat, watches his Red Sox, and has a finely tuned radar for anything he considers unnecessary nonsense. Truth be told, I think he’s always been this way.
At some point the conversation drifted to baseball.
Thinking about the possibility of another work stoppage after the 2026 season, I said, “Since we’re probably going to lose at least part of 2027 anyway, can they at least fix the blackout rules? I pay for MLB.TV, and somehow the Cardinals are blacked out while they’re playing in Toronto?”
Ian took a sip of bourbon, barely looked up, and said in that gravelly voice of his, “Here’s what I do. Every time the Sox are on one of those stupid apps, I create a virtual credit card, make up a fake Yahoo email address, and sign up for another free trial.”
He paused just long enough to enjoy the punch line.
“It’s a pain, but kind of fun being logged in as Gates McFuckapple.”
I nearly spit out my beer.
The ridiculous part was that it made sense.
Following baseball has become less about watching baseball than solving a subscription puzzle. Apple TV one week. ESPN another. Roku somewhere along the way. National broadcasts. Local broadcasts. Blackouts that somehow survive from an era when everyone still had cable.
“I don’t even mind paying,” I finally said. “I just get tired of being interrupted.”
Ian nodded. I expected some hilarious comment on tariffs and Canada. Which would have fit, but he simply said, “It’s late-stage capitalism”.
That was it.
No lecture. No rant.
Just a few words from a guy who’s spent enough years on this planet to recognize nonsense when he sees it.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized he wasn’t really talking about baseball.
We’ve built a world where attention has become the product. Every notification asks us to stop what we’re doing. Every algorithm promises the next video will change our lives. The answer to the problem you didn’t know you had. Every swipe insists that something better is waiting just below the screen.
And somewhere between my second and third beer, it occurred to me that golf has quietly become part of the same economy.
Spend five minutes on social media, and you’ll find enough golf instruction to make your head spin.
Turn more.
Clear your hips.
Shallow the club.
Create lag.
Increase ground force.
Generate speed.
Before long, an amateur golfer can step onto the first tee carrying more swing thoughts than clubs.
We’ve all been there.
We watch a video on Tuesday. Another on Wednesday. Three more on Thursday. By Saturday morning we’re convinced we’ve finally found the secret.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
The problem is that we rarely know why.
One flushed seven-iron convinces us we’ve solved the game. Two holes later, we hit a worm burner with the same club that leaves a trail of scorched earth behind it. Then we’re scrolling again, looking for the next answer.
Somewhere along the way, we’ve mistaken collecting information for improving.
Professional golfers and amateur golfers aren’t solving the same problem.
A tour professional spends thousands of hours chasing fractions of a stroke because that’s where championships and paychecks are won. One degree of launch angle. A little more ball speed. A tighter dispersion pattern.
Most of us are trying to keep the ball in play.
Avoid double bogeys.
Break 90. Break 80. Beat our buddies for bragging rights. Enjoy four hours outdoors.
Yet we spend an awful lot of time chasing the same swing changes as players who hit six-irons farther than many of us hit our drivers.
That brings me to something Sam Snead once said.
He described the golf swing as a dance.
A waltz.
Not a wrestling match.
Not a bar fight.
A waltz.
I’ve always loved that image because nobody learns to dance by memorizing a hundred different steps.
They learn a few simple ones.
Then they practice them.
Again.
And again.
Eventually they stop thinking about the steps altogether. They simply move with the music.
Golf works the same way.
The best rounds I’ve ever played weren’t the ones where I carried six swing thoughts to every tee box. They came when I had a clear target, a simple routine, and enough trust to let the club swing.
My backswing probably wasn’t perfect.
My hip turn certainly wasn’t measured.
My launch angle wasn’t optimized.
I was simply playing golf.
Maybe that’s what so many of us miss.
The golf course isn’t the place to experiment with every new idea we watched on YouTube the night before.
It’s the place to trust what we’ve already practiced.
Professionals practice to discover.
Amateurs often play to discover.
Those are two very different things.
There’s another reason simplicity matters.
None of us arrives at the first tee with an empty mind.
We bring deadlines.
Doctor appointments.
Future plans.
Unexpected bills.
The meeting that could have gone better.
The conversation we wish we’d handled differently.
Life quietly rides in the golf cart with us.
A complicated swing asks our minds to solve one more problem.
A simple, repeatable swing gives us something else.
Rhythm.
Maybe that’s why Snead’s words have endured for generations.
A waltz isn’t beautiful because the dancers are trying harder than everyone else.
It’s beautiful because they’ve practiced the same simple movements until effort gives way to grace.
As I thought back on my conversation with Ian, I realized he would probably chuckle at this little philosophical detour. He’d pour another bourbon, pet the cat, wait for the Red Sox to come on under whatever fake name he needed that night, and remind me that life’s complicated enough already.
Maybe that’s the lesson.
Not just for baseball.
Not just for golf.
Maybe for life.
In a world determined to interrupt us, there is something quietly rebellious about choosing one simple thing, practicing it until it becomes your own, and refusing to chase every shiny new promise that flashes across a screen.
The next time you’re tempted to search for one more swing secret, remember Sam Snead.
Slow down.
Find your rhythm.
Practice something simple.
Repeat it until it feels natural.
Then let the music play.
After all, golf was never meant to be a fight.
It was always supposed to be a waltz.
Enjoy Your Sunday – MWM
Michael Mattingly is a freelance journalist from Smithton, Illinois, with a background in advanced mathematics and creative writing.
He is a student of the game of golf, drawn to its pressure, rhythm, and unpredictability. He is also an avid St. Louis Cardinals fan and a loyal Chicago Bears supporter.
