golf is mental .

If you're from the UK, you'll read the title as the equivalent of "golf is crazy." And yes, perhaps sometimes it is. The past two days, I've played two 18-hole rounds; one each day. Golf is definitely a mental game. So mental, in fact, that I wonder how the small portion of physicality that is required seems so difficult. On paper it looks easy: look at this giant expanse of fairway in front of you, no bunkers in your face, no water directly in front, the flag in sight, and wonder how things could possibly go wrong. Oh, but they can go wrong. And sometimes, very wrong.


On the course yesterday I think I shot around 115 for 18 holes. That's pretty bad when you take into consideration the fact that par is 72. Today I shot 59 on the front 9 and 49 on the back. Also quite bad (not to mention in the triple digits overall). There seem to be way too many variables. Swing planes, feet placement, too close or far to the ball, managing power and accuracy and the wind. My gosh, it's too much! And yet it seems like the perfect thing to do is not to think about any of these, but rather to just swing without thinking too much.

I also don't take practice swings. You can't see the result of those practice swings, so who knows if that would have been a good shot? I walk up, get settled and hit. Today, it was awfully frustrating. Some days you just wanna throw the clubs and quit. There are good shots and bad, but I guess the important thing in the end is to just go ahead and keep trying and practicing.

At the end of the day, you can't play golf five times a summer and expect to be a scratch golfer.