Dreaming of Golf – great practice?

Last night I had a very realistic and vivid golf dream.

Now, I don’t normally remember courses hole for hole and sometimes don’t even remember the hole once I’m standing at the tee again. Greg is amazing at doing this. He can remember every golf hole and every course layout he’s ever played and how he has played it. I wish I had that ability, because that kind of information would really be useful! The only ones I can picture or describe are the two where I got aces, the nine par 3s at Sinaloa (because I’ve played them dozens of times) and a few at Westlake (again, because of repetition). When really pressed or reminded by Greg, I might be able to conjure some sketchy and uncertain details in my mind. Even when I take pictures, that doesn’t cover the whole hole, and I often don’t remember the unseen portion. When I recognize a hole from the tees or a picture from the tees, that doesn’t mean I know what’s beyond what I can see and how I should play the hole. If I’m ever in a really competitive situation, I would definitely want to play the course first and take some serious notes. But I digress.

As I was saying, last night I had a very realistic and vivid golf dream. I’ve been awake for awhile now so I can’t be sure, but I feel like the course was Soule Park in Ojai, CA. (The dream also inspired the Soule Park post.) Now that I’m awake, I can only summon a couple of images from this course: the gaping ravines and broken cart paths and bridges that washed away in all the rains, and the little par 3 (might be #10 since it’s right near the clubhouse) with the elevated tees going over what used to be a lake but drained into the river during the storms. In my dream, it was all fixed up. I could see every shot on every hole clearly and played a really good round. However, I don’t think I saw any of the putting so it might not have been that good of a round after all.

Every shot was clean and went right where I wanted. Even though I didn’t develop any muscle memory with those shots, I still feel like it was good practice. If the power of the subconscious can recall things I can’t remember when awake, it must also work the other way, right? Maybe those swings will get ingrained in my subconscious and materialize on a real course. I can almost feel it now. Now I just need some subconscious putting practice!

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