Lloyd,
Do you think in pictures or words?
I've been a professional musician for probably as long as you have. When you need to learn a chord progression (whether someone elses song or an old one of yours that you haven't played for many years) how long does it take? Probably not very long. What methods do you use to learn a chord prog?
You said recently that you don't listen to other music when you are writing because you lose focus & end up writing something that sounds like what you were listening to. When you are on the golf course you are probably thinking about your game & not so much about the course.
One of my problems is that I think too much about the architecture when I'm on the course & not enough about my game. I have friends that play much better than me, but I can describe every hole with approx yardage of courses I haven't played for 20 years. (I did this only last week for a friend) Even courses that are not that great.
If you want to remember courses better, give yourself a memory trigger for each hole. If you think in words, associate each hole with a lyric or give each hole a title. If you think in pictures, make mental images of each hole.
I was in Scotland about 5 months ago & played 14 rounds of golf. Fortunately, I can remember every hole I played, because I had my digital camera stolen at Heathrow.
