Yes, this is a golf blog, but golf gives me the perfect metaphor to describe Chip Kelly, the highly successful, but maddening, coach of the Oregon Ducks football team. (Overseas readers, you might not be able follow the particulars, but you’ll do all right with the general principle.)

Kelly has taken Oregon to four straight B.C.S. bowl games, the National Title game once, and how can you get more successful than that? By not being the Phil Mickelson of college football, that’s how.

2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot. Phil, who hasn’t hit a fairway all day with his driver, has a one-shot lead on the final tee. Out comes the driver instead of the fairway wood and tragedy of errors, beginning with a tee shot deep into the trees, causes him to lose the tournament by one stroke.

2012 Masters. Third hole, final round. Phil hits his approach in to ugly stuff left of the green. Instead of taking an unplayable lie and trying for maybe a five and a certain six, he plays it as it lies and ends up with a seven, losing the tournament by two shots.

Over to Chip Kelly.

2010 National Title game. Oregon’s offense has been pretty well contained by Auburn’s defensive line, but the Ducks complete a long pass in the third quarter and have a first and goal inside the five. In three plays, they get down to the one yard-line. Instead of going for the field goal, Kelly tries to do what hasn’t worked three times already. It doesn’t work the fourth time. Oregon comes away with no points, and loses by three.

2012 at home against Stanford, the only team realistically standing between Oregon and another trip to the NTG. QB Marcus Mariota breaks off a long run to the Stanford 15 in the first quarter. Three plays later it’s fourth and two. Just like Phil, Kelly pulls out the driver, instead of going for a certain three points. Once again, the Ducks are stopped and Stanford takes over. The game ends in a tie and the Ducks lose in overtime. ‘Bye, ‘bye, NTG.

Both Mickelson and Kelly are gamblers, and they have the talent/team to make it pay off enough to warrant the attempt. But there are times when you just have to take what you’ve earned and say, “That’s good enough.” Fourth and short inside the 10 seems to be Kelly’s idea of hitting into a sucker pin. Sometimes it works, and when it does it’s what gets you knocking on the door of winning it all, but what’s the saying? Discretion is the better part of valor? A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? It’s one thing to be brave, but another to be foolish.

Will Kelly ever learn? I doubt it. But oh, well, we’re having a fun ride, and we’ll enjoy it wherever he takes us for as long as it lasts.

I watched Monday night’s Alabama-Notre Dame game, every play, even to the very end. There’s no more college football for another 235 days. It’s a good thing I have golf to keep my mind occupied in the meantime.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

In this morning’s sports page there was an article containing ten things to watch for in golf in 2013. By golf, they meant professional golf, which includes about .01% of all golfers. They aren’t golf. You are. I am.

So here are my predictions for golf in 2013.

1. I will play more golf that I did last year (which isn’t saying much, because getting over spine surgery (twice) means you don’t play at all).

2. I will practice more intelligently.* That means every ball hit has to have a purpose.

3. I will take more lessons to learn the finer points of maneuvering the ball around the course. One of those lessons will be nine holes with the pro who will pick the shot and put the club in my hand, for every shot, and tell me why.

4. I will watch less golf on TV.

5. I will play five courses I haven’t played before (which is saying a lot, because I play all over).

But enough about me.

6. The USGA will lose membership if it adopts a ban on the anchored putting stroke.

7. The golfing press will get Tiger Woods’s name into every article, and have a picture of him, even when he does squat. Which he will do. Often.

8. Golf equipment manufacturers will tell you that the clubs you bought two years ago, which you had to get because the clubs you bought two years before that were seriously out of date, are now seriously out of date and you have to buy this year’s model even though a few lessons would be a much better investment for half the price.

9. The U.S. Open at Merion will demonstrate that the old courses are old. We love them, but the modern game has passed them by. It’s time to play golf’s majors on courses designed to test the modern game.

There. That’s nine predictions, not ten, because golf is a game of nines, not tens. Happy New Year.

*I made a New Year’s resolution to go to the range often. This morning I modified that to, but only if its over 40 degrees outside. That’s intelligent practice, too.

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