There you stand, lines of pain etching your kisser. You have just shanked your third ball of the day, dead right into the blackberry bushes. Not only that but you nearly threw up on the previous green when you stabbed a two-footer by the hole, not even catching an edge.

Worse, every bounce, deflection and lie chooses the least favorable place to be. Murphy's Law applies to every shot. Whatever can go wrong does. It's been like that for a month. Doubts plague yourself, your game, your sanity. You consider getting a DNA check. Maybe it's something hereditary, some awful disease that will soon cause your bones to rot. You start to understand how Greg Norman felt on the back nine at Augusta this year.

You practice more and harder and read every golf tip you can find. You listen with rabbit ears to every piece of advice by every loudmouthed know-it-all on the driving range. You eagerly consider tips that 20 handicap duffers are giving their 36 handicap wives.

You only get worse. What to do?

Sometimes it's like being caught in a giant spider web. The harder you struggle, the tighter the strands become, the worse your predicament. The spider is coming to eat you. What are your alternatives?

1.Take a two-week break from golf then sell your clubs and go fishing.

2.Buy new clubs. That's always a solution and always works for a little while. At least buy a new driver, preferably titanium or whizbangium or whatever is the most hyped thing on the market.

3.Get those old clubs out of the garage. Standard length persimmon woods, old steel-shafted irons and change putters. Be careful, with this approach. You will be really ticked-off at yourself for having spent a thousand bucks on those over-sized, graphite shafted irons you saw advertised on TV. You will probably hit the ball as straight and long with your old sticks as you were doing when your game went South using the new super-fandangled hi-tech goodies you mortgaged your house for.

4.Take a lesson or go to a golf school. This never works. You will go to the range with the pro and he will ask you to hit a six-iron. You will just kill the ball right through the same hole in the sky time after time. "What problem were you having?" He will ask. You will feel like a dope. You will be broker than you were after buying another set of clubs.

There is another course of action. First, you may be playing too much. You may not be playing with the right balance of competition. Conventional wisdom says you should divide your playing into thirds. Play a third with better, a third with equal and a third with inferior players. Check your own recent playing history and adjust accordingly.

Another suggestion is to spend some time working on nothing but your short game. Emphasize good rhythm and balance and holding your head still. Keep a clear visual picture of the ball, the spot you want to strike on the green and the imagined roll of the ball.

Dwell on past successes. Remember clearly specific great shots you have made, long putts you have dropped and low scores you have shot.

Above all remember the old admonition: "Don't despair when you play badly because you will play well again. Don't get overjoyed when you play well because you will play badly again." That's golf.

If you want to consult a professional be sure that you understand what problems you are trying to solve. That may involve analysis of your most general statistics. Greens in regulation, putting percentage, sand saves, fairways hit. Is there a predominate shape to your shots? Do you usually draw or fade the ball? What has changed from when you played well?

Lastly, make sure something has not happened to your equipment. Forged irons, in particular, tend to change loft as well as lie. Is there a club or two that suddenly is not working? Perhaps there has been a few degrees change in the club. This can happen easily by just hitting a root in the rough.

What I hope all this stuff has brought to your attention is that the complexities of figuring out where your game may be leaking oil or losing voltage is not always simple. Often, unlike a clunky automobile, golf games may be self-curing. Time may be all you need. Take a short break and just resume playing, allowing time to heal.

There are many more ways to approach the pain of poor play but this list may give you a starting point.

(c) Sandy Bunker

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