Don't bruise the peach.

Stride like a panther into the ball. Align your forearms. Take your stance in front of that full-length mirror there. You should see a sliver of your left (front) forearm above your right.

A sliver? Of forearm? Yeah?

I'm in front of the mirror, trying to decide if what I see is a sliver. It could be a slice, a pinch, a dash. A dash of forearm. That could be it. Couldn't it?

What about the peach?

"Picture a ripe peach sitting just behind your clubhead at address'' is what it says in the golf magazine. "If you snatch the club back quickly, you'll whack the peach. Start back slowly and the clubhead pushes the peach away gently.''

Got it. Slice a sliver of peach while "thinking of the cool, confident stride of a panther,'' says the magazine. "Most amateurs look like a penguin'' approaching the golf ball.

Not me. Standing there, in front of that mirror, gazing at the sliver, thinking of not whacking the peach, pretending to be a - g-r-r-r-owwwlll - panther, I look like a lunatic. I'm an extra in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Which one of you nuts wants to play some golf?

It is that time. Unless you have the wherewithal to fly to warm, sunny places in February - or you have a cushy job like mine, involving paid trips to Phoenix, San Diego and Sarasota in the dead of winter - you are starting to commit golf. Maybe for the first time. Maybe for the first time in years. Maybe you've played awhile and you still don't get it.

Like me.

I play some.

I'm not very good.

Actually, I stink on toast. I'm working at it, though. I'm reading this magazine.

"Play the ball just ahead of center . . . tilt the grip away from the target and slightly toward your body . . . take a wide stance . . . angle your spine away from the target, matching the handle position . . ."

"Imagine you're shaking dice in your right hand . . .''

"Place a headcover under each armpit . . .''

"Place a chair one fist's width in front of your left hip . . .''

"While standing on a crowded bus, make a full swing with your 9-iron. If you decapitate an 80-year-old man, an unemployed high-tech middle-manager and two drunks staring at their shoes, you're overswinging. Try shortening your backswing.''

OK. I made the last one up. If you catch the old guy's ear and it hooks into oncoming traffic, your club face is closed.

The people who write the how-to's in golf magazines are the same people who tell you how to put together your gas grill. They got their start in kids toys. Probably bikes and trains.

To achieve what they ask, you have to be Stephen Hawking and Tiger Woods. I could do one of two things after reading this stuff:

1. Go to the driving range, mumbling, "Stride like a panther, don't bruise the peach. Stride like a panther, don't bruise the peach,'' or 2. Call Curran.

Curran the Golf God makes his living by making golf easier than the collected works of Marcel Proust. He's a retired guy who gives 25 lessons a week to the golf-lorn: People who rarely break 100, who play a few times a month, who want to play in an outing without providing the laugh track. "I'm their last hope,'' he says.

Curran makes golf simple. He wrote a 120-page book about it, which he promptly reduced to a 12-page pamphlet, which he streamlined into a one-page document free of references to peach-whacking.

Because I love you, dear readers, I will tell you what Curran preaches. Don't try it in a crowded bus:

Hit the little ball (golf) before the big one (earth). Don't try to lift the ball. That's the club's job.

Think of the clubhead as the flipper on a pinball machine: Swing too early, club face is closed, ball goes left. Swing too late, club face is open, ball goes right. Club face square, ball goes straight.

Around the green, the length of the backswing determines the distance of the shot. That applies for pitches and chips, too, not just putts. It doesn't matter what your swing looks like. All that counts is the impact. If the face of the club is square to the target, if you hit the ball first, then the ground, the ball should go in the intended direction.

If it doesn't, growl like a panther. Or give Curran a call. You can reach him at (513) 607-5842.

E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com