The Next Shot
SHORT STORIES
The Next Shot
In golf, you rarely hit the ball exactly where you intended.
You stand at the tee and look ahead.
You have a destination in mind.
You read the fairway, choose a club, consider the wind, and decide where you want the ball to land.
Then you swing.
And reality gets involved.
A little more wind than expected.
A slope you didn’t fully read.
The grass slows the ball down.
Or perhaps the shot simply wasn’t as good as you thought it would be.
Now the ball is somewhere else.
So you walk to it.
You don’t take your next shot from where the ball should have been.
You take it from where it actually is.
And you look again.
Sometimes you can even see the perfect shot from there.
But knowing the perfect shot doesn’t mean you can make it.
Maybe it requires a distance you don’t have.
A precision you cannot consistently produce.
Or a risk that makes little sense from your current position.
So you choose another shot.
Perhaps a shorter one.
Not because you have forgotten where you are going.
But because this is where you are now.
Then you hit the ball again.
And walk toward it again.
Maybe improvement works a little more like golf than we think.