It never changes

The target is 487 yards away but you stand there,
contemplating, worrying, thinking.

The mind focuses, the heart settles, the muscles fall into that space between taut and loose.

The first step; thinking smooth, smooth, smooth and graceful.

Contact is made and the ball flies true.

A sigh of relief and then the tenseness of anticipation returns for the next shot. It's the long layup. No hook, no slice, please be straight. And it is. And, now, just 110 to the hole, the end is in sight.

The negative thoughts creep throughout your brain, dripping poison, spreading the fog of fear in the deepest recesses of your mind.

You focus until there is only the ball, the white orb, driving all else from your mind. Pushing away all the things that can go horribly wrong. You lift the club, drawing it back, back, back... coiling, trying to tighten the body but stay relaxed, it's all a contradiction. You pause just a bit longer at the apex before the release, before the arms, hands, and club come swiftly down where all things meet at the little white ball there on the ground.

And then it's away, you have no more control over anything and you stand there waiting, trying to will the ball to go where you intended.

It flies and you see it going toward the flag. Your heart starts to beat faster, your thoughts race... will it reach? Will it stay on that wondrous, perfect, line?

And then it hits the turf of the green... a bounce, another bounce, still straight and true... it rolls toward the pin... and then past it and on and on until it rolls off the back and up the small mound, into the heavy rough.

Every time, no matter what.

It is the grand mystery of the 18th green.