A bad day on the golf course....

[lchang]

On Saturday I planned on not golfing but my buddy talked me into playing. We get to one of our areas public courses and see a massive backlog on first tee. My buddy is about a 18 handicap but lives for the days where I blow up and he can hang in with me. First Tee I go ob... he bunts one down the middle... almost holes his iron and birdies. Play the front in 3 hours.. I shot a 43 and he is at 45.. After 9 I say ok... its time to go home this is long enough. He gives me crap and says you only want to go because I am hanging with you lets keep playing. After about a 30 minute wait on the 10th tee I decide to lay up... chunk my iron... take a double... I start chunking my irons on the back... skulling chips... chunking chips... double crossing myself while he continues to have the round of his life. I end up shooting 88 and he puts up an 88 as well. It is now Friday and all week I have been in a miserable mood. I would have rather stayed at home than experience that day on the course.

 

Thanks for sharing. I can very much sympathize with you. Hopefully catharsis-via-GolfWRX helps a tiny, little bit to make you feel better. (Also a good practice session!)

[ohioglfr]

In hindsight, it just might very well be a positive experience.

 

I was invited to play at a private country club by one of our vendors at the time. We spoke a lot about golf and exchanged stories of good rounds / good shots. He told me I could bring someone, so I brought my best golfing buddy.

 

That day was the single worst day I had ever had playing golf. EVER. At that point in my life I had already been playing for 11 or 12 years, too. I can remember each of those shots just as well as shots of my very best round.

 

Every drive was topped. Every approach show was fatted. Every pitch was shanked. It was incredibly - and I cannot stress this enough - INCREDIBLY demoralizing. I was actually apologizing to my vendor, who honestly didn't care and just hoped I had some kind of fun.

 

In the parking lot, my friend told me he never felt so bad for someone on the golf course. "That wasn't vaca22 out there," he said. "Just forget about today."

 

I thought about not touching clubs for the rest of the year.

 

That very single day was the turning point in the way I approached golf, the way I thought about golf, the way I played golf, and the way I managed myself on the golf course. That was the very day golf became something different to me.

 

No one had ever taught me how to grip the club properly, or how that you had to hit down on the ball to get it up. I finally decided to take lessons and become the golfer I knew I could become. I decided I was going to play golf not only to enjoy being outside and the feeling of catching one pure, but to actually be able to put a respectable score on the scorecard. I decided I was going to keep my emotions to myself. That business about raging after a bad shot, and dwelling on in for the next 3 shots, all the while hitting more bad shots...that was over. One and done for me. What's the point of dragging it around?

 

That in and of itself was a long process of learning about what I could and couldn't do, and getting used to all the changes. My only wish is that I had done this years before. I kept thinking to myself I could have actually been decent at a younger age!

 

So you might not realize it now, but there is a silver lining to your terrible day. It may take some time, but I believe you will have learned greatly from your poor round. I started playing golf in 1993/1994, but I actually didn't start to play golf until 2005.

Good advice.

 

Never had a lesson in 40+ years, and wish I did. I didn't, probably out of the fear of changing an OK swing. I'm going to schedule a session soon.