As a member of the addictive personalities club, I'm here to say that it really doesnt make things easy. Albeit fantasy sports, skateboarding, snowboarding, lifting, tennis, chess, poker, centsports.com, you name it. Really if there is any sort of competition involved against an opponent or against myself, I have at one point been addicted to it.
This post is not going to dwell on the past, though. Let bygones be bygones and most all of those addictions are long since gone.
However, the new kid on the block has been and will continue to be the worst of them all. GOLF! This son of a bitch has got me by the balls. I have always had clubs and hacked away year in and year out. Until this past year I would play something like 5-8 rounds a summer and be completley content. I would slice the ball the first 4 holes and draw it the next 4...then on hole 9 save par (or if im lucky birdie) and that one little par would make up for the first 8 holes. I was happy and the game was fun.
Well I dont know what changed. Your guess is as good as mine, but round about May I decided to give this a go. I wanted to be a single digit handicap and I was determined to do it by July. Why not? Every other sport I have dedicated even the smallest amount of effort to, I have excelled at....and in some cases excelled greatly. I figured how could this be any different? Ill play a few rounds, correct my swing, start practicing putting, and in no time that 1 par/birdie per 9 will turn into 7 (wrong).
So I did. Full steam ahead. I started hitting balls every single day. I would scour the internet and watch every single tutorial I could find. I would ask my peers who are much better than myself so many questions I would drive them away. I bought the gear. I looked the part. I acted the part. I started seeing a swing coach. You name it, I did it. I'm doing it. Present tense.So lets skip all the nonsense and answer the question: Where are you with your progress today?
Ill tell you where I'm at. Not a single inch closer than when I started. In the last 14 days I have probably played 12 rounds of 18 holes. In the last 2 days I have played 48 holes of golf.
Yesterday, with Mdot, I probably had one of the worst days I have had all summer. Just double triple double double. 2 pars the entire round. 0 birdies. On one par 5 I smoked my 6 iron to 6 feet to set up an eagle putt. Of course I 3 putted. He was doing the same thing, but he's not emotionally invested like I am. While I was throwing tantrums and coming close to wrapping my gap wedge around the trunk of the tree, he was happy that he had a 4 foot birdie putt. When he missed it, it didnt matter. He had a birdie putt and that was good. God I miss the good ol days.
The moral of my story is this. If you have not yet decided to care about your golf game, do anything and everything in your power to keep it that way. If you do, trust me, you are taking a journey and giving into the dark side. No amount of athleticism is going to help you. No amount of concentration. The game will break you in half as it has broken me.
One of the worst parts is, the better you get..the smaller your margin of error is. So as my score grows smaller the probability of massive frusteration grows larger. Right? Yesterday I self destructed emotionally because I wouldn't have been able to hit a fairway if I had a loaded .45 to my head and my life depended on it. But is it really going to be all that different when I'm going for greens instead of fairways? Now I chase pars, but down the road I will chase birdies...and miss them. No matter how good I get, I will still miss greens. Or putts. Where is the reward in this sport? What seemed like a 2 or 3 month venture....now seems like it will take me 5 years. I can't quit. I am a full blown addict and every day I have to get my fix.
Who am I kidding? I love this game. I'm going to the range at Blackheath right now.
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