Underdog Golf Blog

Ahhhhhhh, it felt so good to get out on the range today. Between being sick and it raining for three straight days I hadn’t been able to practice much this past week and a half. During my lesson this week I could tell. I was stiff as a board, reverting back to old bad habits and apparently forgot how to putt.
Needless to say who would have known a week and a half could leave you a bit rusty. It all started getting comfortable again about 15 minutes in and I remember why I love this game. Just swinging that club melted any stress I was carrying with me away.

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?”

Change is inevitable. Whether we as people are on board accepting change is another entirely different thing. In my 28 youthful yet wise years, I have learned that it is best to roll with the punches. I’ve learned to accept that not everything goes according to plan and that’s simply because we can’t predict the future.

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.

After a few weeks shooting 100 and up I was finally able to break into the double digits for the third time shooting a 94 on Sunday. The crazy part about this is that it was the worst weather I’ve ever played in thus far.

I’ve played with some wind before but nothing like this. At one point the wind was blowing so hard I was having trouble standing still lining up to the ball. This particular hole was a very long par 5 and with the wind doing its thing I shot an 8 and learned a lot about the wind’s affect on each clubs distance. Luckily the rain held off for 30 minutes longer than the forecast had predicted; which happened to be the exact amount of time we needed to finish the round.

As humans we are naturally creatures of inquisition. If something isn’t going right we want to know why. This way we can continue to evolve and progress in life and retain our status as supreme creatures of this Earth; top of the food chain if you will.

So when I noticed my total putts had been slipping, I naturally wanted to know why. I started to think back at all the different putting situations I had been in over the past month and cringed when I thought about the simple 3 to 4 foot putts I had missed causing me to 3 putt.

I come to you today with a confession. My practice has lacked over the past few weeks due to some external and internal circumstances and my scores of late have shown this. But with all things of this nature, there was a lesson to be learned. Sometimes you need to go easy on yourself and realize you’re only human.

My schedule lately has been hectic to say the least. Between golf practice, working out, working a full time job, keeping a healthy relationship with my girlfriend and trying to maintain the slightest bit of a social life to avoid entering “hermit” status, I don’t have much downtime. Sadly this lead to a burnout moment where I questioned myself and everything I was doing with this blog. As I said, I’m only human.

Beauty is an astounding quality of life. It is one of the only things in this world that transcends medium. Beauty can be found in a person, a building, a landscape or even an idea. The perception of what is beautiful will vary from person to person and opinion to opinion, but everyone is able to identify beauty in their minds.

I was watching the Australian Open on the Golf Channel this evening just after returning home from the practice range. While practicing I had been focusing on keeping a consistent tempo and the level of tension throughout my body during my swing; just repeating in my head, “tempo, not tension” over and over the entire time I was there. The smoother the tempo and the less tension I felt the more graceful my swing felt, almost like I was waltzing through my bucket of practice balls.