FISH

So with the olympics behind us, let me do a blog that is front loaded with golf metaphors.

There is no game in the world that can make you feel like a gold medal athlete and a bronze one the very next swing. Of course there’s always a golf swing that makes you feel like the 100 meter sprinter for Kazakhstan. Using the Kazakhstan scenario that would make me Tiger Woods out of the tee box and Borat from the fairway and on the putting surface, well… do they award aluminum medal?

Golf is the one of the most unforgiving games created. Another for instance for ya, I went out last week and shot a 40 and I rolled three putts just past the hole three times. If you measured the distance in which I missed those putts and added them together I honestly don’t think they would of added up to half inch. So if those fall I’m telling a gold medal tale of a 37, none the less, I’m still a silver medal dipped in gold. But then I went out the next day a shot a 66 - very niiiiiccce. A 66! What’s that all about. It’s just is not fair.

So I’ve been going a little crazy on the links. My play has been -to say the least all over the place. Here’s a great example, the other day I’m playing, I tee up and bomb one about 250 - 275 yards right down the middle of the fairway, I pull out a 7 iron put it on the green, two putt for par. Next hole I slice four into the woods. I’m not talking about a slight fade because I tried to hug the tree line, I’m talkin’ banana bend that almost starts to boomerang back at me. Ridiculous right? Well on my fifth shot I take a super easy swing that barley cleared the hazard but it went straight and I took off after it. This hole is a dog leg right and from where I was it was about 140 yard to the bend so I pull out the eight and take a few practice swings - none of which felt good. So do you hit the ball anyway? Today I decide that NO was the answer. I’ve got no one behind me so I’m going to force myself to remember how the game is played. I relax, and remembered what the first pro that gave me a lesson told me, let the club do the work, only take a half a swing and keep your head down. Another simple way of doing it concentrate.

So I heed my own advice address the ball take an easy swing and hit the ball crisp and place better than I could ever had hope for. I grab my rescue club and applied the same swing thoughts and put it on the green then nailed a 35 foot putt for birdie (well birdie with the exception of the 4 titleist seeds I lanted in the woods). Third and fourth holes were pars and the rest of the round fell nicely into place. And all I had to do is stop and concentrate on what I’m doing. Now that’s not to say I don’t still do weird stuff, I do. But at least now I can dial it back in quickly.