I see that today is the 100th birthday of Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956), considered by many the greatest woman athlete of the 20th Century. She played championship basketball, won two gold and one silver medals in track in the 1932 Olympics, and dominated the young LPGA, which she pretty much invented. I read her autobiography when I was in high school, and the outstanding fact I remember from it is that she, like many athletes, was extremely superstitious. She was one of these who, during a win streak, wouldn't change her socks.
I was never a superstitious athlete myself, although there was an unusual interlude in my golfing life when I got hung up about the color of tee I was using. It all started when I found a bright purple tee on the first teeing ground one evening while playing with the company golf league. I decided to use it, and I had an excellent round. I continued to use that tee, believing it was responsible for every good shot I hit (while not blaming it for the bad ones) until a couple weeks later when I broke it. After that I used a different color of tee for each tee shot until I hit a really good one, and then I used that color of tee exclusively, at least until its magic wore off.
After a couple months I finally decided that was real stupid, but the only way I could rid myself of the notion was to rid myself of all the colored tees I owned. I bought a bag of tees that were no color at all, just plain, unpainted wood, which solved the problem.
And I have remained superstition-free ever since, which is a very good thing. A blackjack dealer at the Little River Casino told me he believed it was bad luck to be superstitious, and I think he might be right.
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