FORE!

Went golfing this morning, for the first time since my cousin was up last year.  My brother has invited me a few times in the last month or so but I always refused because of my back issues.  Well, when he asked this week I said screw it, I’m going.  I’ll drug up if I have to.  I took some ibuprofen before I got there and headed out.  There were 4 of us and we were only playing 9 holes.  The first guy (brother’s friend) gets up, crushes it but I goes right into the fairway next to us.  My brother gets up and crushes it as well, also to the right.  The next guy (brothers friends friend) gets up and barely hits it.  Now it’s my turn.  I’m nervous because I’m not sure how well my back will allow me to swing.  Not to mention, this is only the 2nd time I’ve ever tried to use an actual driver.  I’ve always used a driving iron because I could never get the hang of hitting one but my driving iron had broke and I couldn’t find another one on short notice.  So I get up there, line up and smoke it right down the middle of the fairway.  It hurt my back a little but not bad.  Everybody goes up to take their next shots and some their third.  I get up to my ball, pull out an iron and put the ball within 5 feet of the hole.  I was extremely happy, I thought this was going to be one of those good days.  I ended up 2 putting for a +1 on the first hole.  Then it was all downhill from there.  I never saw the scorecard, but I was probably around 50 for 9 holes.  I’d hit a great shot followed by a couple of crappy ones.  I had a good time regardless of how I played.  I only threw my club once which says a lot.

I used to golf quite a bit in high school.  I even tried out for the golf team once (I sucked).  But the clubs I play with now are the same ones I played with back then.  Although I have picked up a 3 wood and a putter.  I had a friend who was a golf pro at a shop in college so he was a pretty good golfer and he would give me tips on how to improve so I was a decent enough back then.  Never a scratch golfer by any means, but decent enough, especially for someone who never uses a driver.  I generally shot in the upper 80’s, lower 90’s.  But I loved to play and still do, but finances played a lot on why I quit playing as well.  It’s not a cheap sport, especially now when my fat ass refuses to walk instead of getting a cart.  It costs us $17 a person this morning and that was only 9 holes.  This was an out of the way course as well, if you want to go to one of the nicer courses, it’ll cost even more.

My brother is talking about playing every week, we’ll see if I’ll be able to do that or not but I can go every so often at least.  It would be nice to be able to afford it since I now have days off from work and actually have the time to do so.

Tonight, we are heading for Portage to watch my nephew play for a chance at the Little League World Series.  They are down to the final 7 teams and are in a double elimination tournament.  They won their first game last night and play again tonight and more games Saturday and a final game on Sunday if they keep winning.