Underdog Golf Blog

This weekend I got to attend my first ever live PGA Tournament. Living in San Diego, CA, I am lucky enough to have an annual event hosted at Torrey Pines 10 minutes away from my house. I didn’t really know what to expect when I got there as I had heard mixed reviews about attending these tournaments live.
People had told me that I wouldn’t be able to see anything and it’s better to watch from home, yet others told me there was nothing like it. I have to say I agree with the positive reviews as I had a blast and loved every second of it. It also didn’t hurt that it came down to a 2 hole playoff between Brandt Snedeker and Kyle Stanley.

Tonight I’m staring at my computer screen, the cursor blinking on a blank page almost taunting me. I’ve got so many things going through my head on what I need to work on, but none of them translating to words. It’s almost hard to describe the learning curve I’m on right now.

Woosh. Woosh. Woosh. I’ve grown to love that sound so much. The sound of connecting with the ball first and launching it off the club face. Anytime you watch a PGA tournament you hear this sound with almost every shot. As an amateur, and most importantly beginner, the occurrence of this is a bit more spread out.

If there’s one thing I haven’t perfected yet it’s gauging distances on the golf course. I’ve definitely gotten better with time, but I’m still not where I need to be. To help out with this, I asked my wonderful girlfriend Maria for a SkyCaddie SG5 as a Christmas present. I asked, I received, I screamed like a little school girl when I opened it Christmas morning.

There’s an old saying, “Practice what you preach”, that I think has finally registered with this wonderful game of golf and myself. One of the things I did this past week was go back through and read all my previous posts and I started to notice that one key factor that I hadn’t mastered was playing one shot at a time.

Not one day after my last post Back in the Swing of Things, I got sick again; one of the lovely benefits of working with people who are sick and continue to come into the office. This put my total sick time to over 2 weeks and my practice and productivity for this golf blog at an almost stand still.

While complaining to one of my college friends that lives in VA, he not so subtly reminded me that he has to take months off at a time due to winter weather. He also told me it typically takes him 3 to 4 months into the golf season to really feel like his game is back to peak level.

Every day each one of us is faced with a series of choices. Some of these choices will inevitably get grouped into the mundane doesn’t require any thought category. We make them and simply go on about our day. Other choices require a little more thought but don’t make a big impact on how our day, week or lives will play out afterwards. Think “what will I have for lunch?” or “what shirt am I going to wear today?”

It amazes me how frustrating golf can be. No matter what level of player you are, you always want to strive to be better. And no matter how frustrated you may get or how bad you might be playing, it all goes away with that one great shot.

There is nothing I’d love more than to be shooting in the 80s already each and every time I step out on the course. However, just like anything in life you want to get really good at I’m discovering golf takes time.

I try not to get discouraged when my scores go up and down like a rollercoaster by remembering that even with as much as I practice, I’m still a beginner. When my scores take a hit it’s usually because we’re adjusting some part of my swing or game that is mediocre as it is, but to become excellent I have to keep learning.

As my first Movember comes to a close I can’t help but look back and recollect on the fun stuff that went along with it this month. So I thought I’d share my “top five” list from this past month that includes golf and personal experiences.