Just do the Funky Leon

I have a dear friend whom I have known for 7 or 8 years.  His name is Leon, but I tend to call him many things.  Brother Leon or Brother J are two of my favorite, not that he is associated with a church in any capacity. It just seems to fit.

When I lived a little further south I used to golf with him at least once a week.  In the nice part of the year that once a week was usually  2 or 3 times a week.  Life being what life is.  And the economy being what it is, I have moved a couple times since I first met him.  I’ve gone from being a military brat to a computer gypsy.  Anyway you look at it I am not gathering any moss.

We do try to get together a few times a year to play golf and renew our friendship.  Needless to say, Brother Leon knows my swing well.  Since he does, I do not mind him giving me advice about my swing from time to time.  He is usually dead on as to my particular issue that day.  I could blame my mediocre golf game on lack of any real athletic ability!  Well, okay, I will do that.  One of my poorer tendencies in my golf swing is to get way too fast.  Fast in golf swing seldom equates to distance or a  good ball flight.

Last time we played together that is what I was doing.  I was swinging at such a speed one would have thought I was trying to beat off the devil.  I don’t know why I do this, I just do.  I fight it all the time.  Leon on the other hand has a back swing that you could take a nap in.  It is slow and smooth, and it definitely gets the job done.  He is a very good golfer. This is especially so considering that he did not even take the game up until his mid to late fifties.

A few days after that round I found myself at the driving range practicing.  My goal that day was to swing slow and loose.  Towards that end on each swing I was working hard to envision and mimic Leon’s smooth, slow take-away.   I kept this up for a good many shots.  Somewhere in there my swing thought morphed into “Just do the Leon.”   I stood hitting ball after ball saying to myself, “Just do the Leon.  It occurred to me that that sounded like a dance phrase from the 60s or 70s.  Let’s do the Twist or let’s do the Mash Potato.  Suddenly the swing thought made an evolutionary leap into “Just do the Funky Leon.”

So if you see a crazed, almost senior citizen on the golf course mumbling to himself, “Just do the Funky Leon”, you will know what it is all about.