Point of Relief

Even though I hit the majority of my balls into the ground or so farright it made Bush look liberal, I felt prepared to actually play around. Some friends and I have planned to play 18-holes the firstFriday after school starts next week, so I figured I would just do 9for my first time out.

Taking from what I had read, I showed up an hour before tee-time to practice some hits. I bought a small bucket for $6 and took my time hitting. Sadly, most of my shots didn't go where I intended for them to go and a few didn't even make it 5 feet from the tee. Before heading out, I practiced a few putts and missed those too. Needless to say, my confidence wasn't at its highest as I walked out to the first hole.

It didn't build much either. Despite the holes being named encouraging things like "honesty" or "confidence", I wasn't feeling much of it. In fact, the irony was nearly lost on me as I dug through the brush on several holes. But I digress, my first shot lost my new TaylorMade ball into a creek and I quickly declared it a practice swing (I was playing by myself) and teed-up again. My next shot went approximately 15-20 yards and the pace was set for the rest of the game.

Not everything was miserable though. I could usually sink a putt within 2-3 attempts after getting on the green. Getting to the green seemed to plague me the entire time however and my score card shows the result (averaging about 7 strokes per hole, regardless of par.)

On the 7th hole, I had a breakthrough. Instead of going for distance (even though I was using a 120-degree hybrid so there wasn't that much distance to go for), I could pull back my swing and regain some much-needed accuracy. By doing so, I could usually stay within 5 strokes on a hole instead of 7-9. This epiphany came way too late as I ended up with a final score of a 60... which equaled double the original par. One of my biggest issues seemed to be getting onto the actual green once I was within 75 yards so I took this as a lesson to learn from.

I finished the round by sinking a nice mid-distance putt on the 9th hole to give me my only bogey for the day. Feeling better, I walked back up to the practice facilities knowing that I needed to work on both my drive and my short game. Having already hit the driving range that day, I chose to make my way to the chipping and putting green.