Yesterday, I had a golf milestone, which was I made a birdie when I played by myself. I hit a perfect 7 iron from 155. It caught the wind and faded a little just like I had planned and it rolled straight within 6 feet of the pin. Then, I hit a put with a slight left to right break, and it actually rolled passed the pin and fell backwards into the cup. The put was cool because it looked like I missed the put. It rolled around the cup and paused on the back edge for a bit before falling in. It gave me that disappointed feeling, but then it fell, and I was very happy. It was the par 3 16th on the Glen at Tennison.
As far as the round goes, I shot a 92, which kind of sucks, but as I've said before, anytime I birdie during the course of a round, it makes the whole round worthwhile.
I had 7 bogies on the front 9, which was very frustrating except for the fact that these were easy bogies. I wasn't struggling just to make bogie--I was just hitting bad approach shots. Everyone bogie was one that I should have made par. I was always in the 100-170 yard range and messed my second shot every time. I either missed green left, too long, or too short. Also, I missed the "up and down" opportunity, which means, I could only get the chip to within 12 feet, and I missed the one put, and had to settle for bogie each time.
Granted, it was very windy yesterday, but still most of my shots were just miss hits. I guess my feel for those mid range shots just isn't where I would like for it to be. Once I get a better feel and more confidence with those mid range shots, I suspect I'll be shooting in the low 80's to upper 70's range, which has been a dream of mine ever since I picked a golf club when I was 8 years old.
Moreover, if I get a better mid range shot feel, I'll have more birdie opportunities, which means I'll have more opportunities to reach another one of my goals, which is to get 3 birdies in one round of golf--I've made 2 on several occasions, but 3 has been very elusive.
Anyway, all in all, it was a nice round. Playing golf by yourself is a very zen-like experience. It's just you, your thoughts, and the course. It's very peaceful. In a way, you can kind of put your life into perspective because golf lets you know where you stand as a human being.
For a few examples of how it puts your life into perspective:
Can you recover quickly from a loss?
Can you correctly estimate what it takes to solve a problem?
Can you execute correctly solving a problem?
When you solve a problem correctly, do you become too happy and lose focus?
When everything is going wrong, can you calm down and put everything back on track?
Can you just relax and enjoy the moment?
Can you set out to achieve something and stay focused until you achieve it despite everything?
Can you fix something mentally within you that's broken?
So, I guess, in golf, there are plenty of metaphors for life. Pretty much everything in golf is solved through patience, practice, and persistence.
One of the cool things about golf is, when things happen, they kind of just seem to happen out of nowhere, but then, when you reflect back on what happened, you realize, that's what you've been dreaming would happen, and it finally happened.
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