Always Be Prepared
Posted by Double Eagle in Miscellaneous, My Progress
The Boy Scout motto applies to every aspect of life. Without preparedness, we’re lost. Even on the golf course.
Let me relate a short tale of unpreparedness that bit me on Saturday.
I went out Saturday afternoon fresh off of a couple of swing changes and some serious mental game improvement work. To me, it felt like I was hitting the ball poorly but as I came to the 9th hole, I did some quick arithmetic and discovered that I had a 37 to that point.
Not a great score, but until then, my perception was that I was hitting the ball somewhat poorly, especially the long irons and woods. I was surprised to realize that I was hitting a decent amount of fairways and greens and I was recovering well from bad shots, especially mentally. In reality, I was hitting the long clubs poorly, but I was making up for it by not melting down and by exhibiting strength in other areas (NOT putting).
So, I came to nine, and teed off, somewhat in a hurry because of an approaching thunderstorm. I hit a fade up the left side that rode the wind a little and put me dead center of the fairway, 271 yards out.
I walked up to my ball and surveyed the situation. It was a decent lie but not sitting up completely. I had 258 to the center of the green. I debated whether I should lay up and virtually assure myself of a par, or take a chance going for it with my 3-wood.
I decided to go for it, even though I was struggling with that club (having topped it off the tee on the 6th hole). I set up and hit a huge snap hook, way left into an overgrown, swampy hazard area with a little creek running through.
Oh well, not a great decision, but not a big deal. I could go down and drop and still have a chance at par from about 100 yards out, but a pretty good chance at bogey. In competition, under all those circumstances, I would have laid up.
So I went down just in front of the hazard and picked a good spot to drop. I put my hand into my ball pocket on my bag and rummaged around for a few seconds and got a sinking feeling in my gut.
I opened the pocket the rest of the way and timidly looked inside and sure enough, I was out of balls.
Unbelievable. Out of desperation, I stalked up and down the hazard probing with my pitching wedge looking for a lost ball. No luck. There’s probably a rule against that, but so what. I did it.
The pro shop was within sight, but it was almost dark and it had closed over an hour before.
After several minutes hacking around the edge of the hazard, I gave up. Since I was acting as my own tournament committee, I disqualified myself. The big DQ.
I picked up my bag and walked straight to my car in disgust.
The lesson: if I had taken five seconds and opened my bag when I checked in before the round, I would have seen that I only had two balls left.
The positive spin: my game continues to improve a little at a time and a single day’s score doesn’t mean anything in the long run. There was a lot of good stuff to be taken from that 8/9th of a round.
The reality: I wanted to scream.
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Bryan @ One Man's Goal said:
Posted on July 30th, 2007 at 5:09 am
Greg Bartz said:
Posted on July 30th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Double Eagle said:
Posted on July 30th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Boyd said:
Posted on July 31st, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Double Eagle said:
Posted on July 31st, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Will said:
Posted on August 1st, 2007 at 8:28 am
Columbia said:
Posted on September 4th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Double Eagle said:
Posted on September 4th, 2007 at 8:44 pm