Read The Nine Lessons for Free Online Page A

sooner we get on the golf course today, the sooner we can get off.”
    He nodded.
    “What have I gotten myself into?” I mumbled under my breath as I picked up the new bag and started walking to the first tee box.
    It was still early enough in Vermont’s golfing season that there was no waiting to tee off. The fairways and greens in late April are so soggy that everyone but the nuts like my father stays away for at least a few more weeks. When we got to the first tee, I took some practice swings with my driver. I felt as clumsy as ever with a club in my hands.
    “So, what will we be working on today, Coach ?” I asked impatiently.
    London was sitting on a wooden bench next to a golf ball cleaner. He scratched again at the stubble on his chin. “That depends on you.”
    I looked at him dubiously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means, I’m unsure what to teach you today, because I don’t know what you need to learn. Tell me, Augusta, when you found out you were going to be a father, what was the thing that scared you the most?”
    “What does that have to do with golf?”
    He leaned forward on the bench. “Trust me.”
    I snickered at the thought.
    He tried again. “Seriously, Augusta, trust me on this. Besides, I’m not starting the lesson today until you’ve answered my question. Now c’mon, out with it. What was your biggest fear when you learned that Erin was pregnant?”
    “I don’t see the relevance, but fine, if it’ll move this thing along, I’ll tell you.” I took a moment or two to carefully decide how best to put my feelings into words. “I guess it’s the ‘what-ifs’ that scare me the most. What if I just don’t have it in me? Fatherhood, that is. What if I’m not cut out for it? What if I’m simply not good enough to be… the kind of father that every kid deserves?”
    He looked up at me intently, carefully pondering each of my words. “Very well then. I believe I know what I’d like to teach you today.” London got up off the bench and told me to put my driver away. “For the first couple of holes,” he said, “I want you to use your putter for every shot, all the way from the tee to the cup. Depending on how you do, we may change clubs later on.”
    At first I thought he was joking; nobody in his right mind would use a putter for anything but putting. Of course, I don’t recall anyone ever accusing my father of being in his right mind. It took me sixteen strokes to get the ball into the first hole and another fifteen to complete the second, which is really bad, even for me. I felt like I was playing in slow motion, moving the ball twenty to thirty yards at a time over the damp ground.
    Hole number three was a short par three, and London decided to change tactics. “Put your putter away,” he directed, “and pull out your nine-iron.” Even a duffer like me knew that a nine-iron was the perfect club for this short shot, providing just the right combination of distance and height to land the ball on the green in one swing. But there was a catch. “I brought along a sack of a hundred old balls. Since there is nobody behind us on the course right now, I want you to stay right here on the tee box and just keep hitting balls until you get a hole in one. This’ll be great practice for you. Heaven knows you need it.”
    “I’ve never hit a hole in one before.”
    “But you’ve never had so many chances, have you?”
    So I stepped up to the tee and began hitting balls toward the flagstick ninety yards away. I did miserably. Once in a blue moon a ball would land on the spacious green, but not anywhere near the hole. Most of my shots sliced or hooked in the wrong direction, missing the target by a mile. Of the hundred balls, only five ended up within putting distance of the hole. When I was out of balls London took the empty bag and started walking toward the flurry of white specks scattered along the fairway.
    “Where are you going?” I asked.
    “Where do you