Pay Attention! That's Not Always Possible: Let's Play Golf

   My attention deficit disorder has two faces.  Many people don't understand that.  First, my mind is continually racing and thoughts keep popping in and out of my brain.  This makes it seem like I am going in one hundred directions at once.  The consequence of this is that nothing gets completed.
     My condition has a flip side which rears its ugly head often.  When I am deep in thought or am trying to complete a task, you can hit me with a baseball bat and I probably wouldn't know it.  I am oblivious to my surroundings. You could be jumping up and down in a clown suit hollering my name and if I am in the middle of something that I am intensely concentrating on, I won't notice.
     Believe me, I am not trying or intending to be rude.  The fact of the matter is, I just can't hear you because my mind is so focused on what I am doing or thinking.  I have stories that you won't believe, but they are true. On a positive not, I do play golf faster because I am not standing over a shot for a minute and a half trying to find the best "feel" for a shot. Sergio Garcia played his shots faster than I did.  
     When I was a salesman, I was working building a display of product in a local grocery store.  Needless to say, I was concentrating very hard on the "look" of the display as well as how to build it.  A good friend of mine said that he came up to me and said hello while I was building the display.  He was a little put out when later he told me he was upset that I had ignored him when he talked to me.  To this day, I honestly don't remember him talking to me.  Of course I apologized to him, it seems I apologize a lot and for a lot of reasons, sorry Rusell Crowe and Duckwater, Nevada whom I mentioned in not so flattering terms in earlier posts. Russel Crowe still can't sing as he showed in Les Miserables and Duckwater, Nevada is still out in the middle is nowhere. I hope that I am still in the good graces of Kuala Lampur though. See, there it goes again, off the topic because my brain is going in several different directions at once.
     Sometimes that concentration helps me to do my best.  A few years ago I was in a local Pro-Am golf tournament.  One can definitely be intimidated by something like this, but after the first hole I settled down and played well. It was great and I really was at home and played to the crowd.  There were a couple of times where I had to hit an important shot.  My concentration was amazing, to the point where there was nothing in the world but me and the shot. At times, I wasn't aware of the crowd that had come to see the tournament and was following me.
     I hit an almost impossible shot into a pin cut close to the water on a par three hole.  The crowd went wild. I remember the shot and I remember the crowd.  What I don't remember is the good friend that came up to me to congratulate me on the shot after we holed out. My thoughts were focused on what I had just done and what would I do on the next hole.  I was in "The Zone".
    Later he asked if I remembered him patting me on the back and congratulating me on the shot and the putt. Honestly, I don't remember it and later he asked me about it.  I had to admit that I didn't remember.  I did explain why.
    How does this all relate to golf? What time is it in Kuala Lampur? Oh yes, I forgot.  I must play that golf course that is close to the Arctic Circle in Alaska. Excuse me, I'm going to pour myself a cup of coffee so that I can focus.

Intense concentration.  Where am I by the way?