The enigmatic Marius Filmalter

Marius Filmalter is one of five promoted putting coaches these days, with the Stocktons, Stan Utley, Dave Pelz and Geoff Mangum being the others. I like a lot of what Filmalter has to say, but I have to wonder about the motivation behind this opening paragraph to a recent blog entry:

I want to tell you a story about a round I played last week in Dallas. I was supposed to tee off at 1 p.m., but I left my home office late, so I had to drive 75 mph instead of my normal 65 to get to the course. On my way to the course, I received two phones calls. The first was from my secretary, who told me that a contract I’d been expecting wasn’t ready yet, which agitated me. The second was from my son, who told me that he had just gotten a speeding ticket, which made me even more agitated. As I pulled into the course parking lot, my wife called and started nagging me because she didn’t realize I was going to play. I only had 10 minutes to warm up, and I was fuming mad. My round started bogey, par, bogey.

Now, let’s presume that in that part of Texas, 75 mph is the speed limit and let’s also accept that he was speaking hands-free when he received the two phone calls. I think it’s ironic (and more than a bit hilarious) that he was angry that his son received a speeding ticket. Someone please forward to him the bit about the apple not falling far from the tree.

Most of us speed at one time or another and many of us take a call while driving. I’m not hear to judge, but perhaps, to commiserate. And chuckle a bit. And learn much more about putting.