Note: This contest is now closed and the winners will be announced shortly.
Thanks to Vintage Publishing, I’m fortunate to have a couple of copies of The Downhill Lie: A Hacker’s Return to a Ruinous Sport, by Carl Hiaasen, to give away. The book will be available for wide release on May 5, 2009.
The Downhill Lie chronicles Hiaasen’s return to golf after 34 years away from the game. I started reading it myself last night and am loving his wit and storytelling. When I finish, I’ll publish a review, but in the meantime, it’s contest time.
Here’s what we’re going to do:
To enter, leave a comment telling me if you’ve ever given up the game for any length of time – a day, a month, or multiple decades. Also, tell me why you left, and if you came back, tell me why.
If you’ve never given up the game, don’t worry, you can still win. If you know someone else that left, tell me their story. Or, simply tell me why you’ve never given up the game and never will.
Entries that violate my comment policy won’t be considered, so please review it if you’re not sure how things roll around here.
As I said, there will be two winners, chosen as follows:
- One winner will be chosen subjectively by me out of the entries. Whichever story I like best will win a copy of the book. There’s no criteria other than following the instructions above and me liking your entry the most.
- The second winner will be chosen at random from the remaining entries.
The contest will run for one week. I’ll choose a winner on Friday, May 8, 2009. I’ll contact the winners directly and will also publish a post (and I’ll update this one too).
In the meantime, I’m going to continue reading the book and will publish a review in the near future. Good luck to everyone. I can’t wait to read those stories.
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Back in the early 90s, I played on my high school golf team my sophomore and junior years. I never had a very good relationship with the coach (a math teacher with a country club membership and 12 handicap). My junior year he denied me my varsity letter because I didn’t play in the district tournament due to a scheduling conflict with a church mission trip. After two years of playing everyday and frustration, I quit the team and gave up golf for 18 months.
I didn’t start playing again until my freshman year of collge when I took a golf class to complete my mandatory PE requirement. The class requirement was to play 10 rounds over the course of the semester. Playing most of the rounds by myself, I realized why I loved the game and started playing in the first place. I loved the challenge of me vs. the course, not “me vs. other golfers” that had become the focus of high school.
I have given up the game in pevious years. The reason was always the quality of my play. I knew I could play better, but just was unable to attain my previous levels of play. And since I lacked coaching resources frustration won out, and I would swear off golf forever. Luckily my time away would be very limited. At most a month. Now I just try to enjoy being out there, and try to remember I’m only as good as my practice allows me to be.
I just recently picked up my dad’s old clubs and went out the the driving range. Man, it’s harder than you think. I think I’ll keep practicing though, I like the feel of the course on a nice day, definitely worth it.
I played high school golf but wasn’t good enough at the time to earn a college scholarship. So when it came time to go to college I quit in favor of my academic pursuits. OK, I really quit to spend more time in pursuit of girls, kegs, and more girls. It really didn’t leave me much time for rounds of golf. Heck, it barely left me time to study.
Now I really only hang with one girl who happens to be my wife. And nobody wants to be at a kegger with a middle aged dude (with the exception of other middle aged dudes and I’d argue they shouldn’t be there either).
So picking up golf again seemed like a good idea and the age appropriate thing to do. I can always put a few beers in the back of the golf cart…
I quit for one whole week last year. I was shooting in the low 80′s looking to bust into the 70′s last spring, when all of a sudden on one of those days when you feel like you can win every lottery in town, I played a round in the triple digits. It came out of nowhere. It slammed me like a sack of potatos on the curb. I could not believe it! My buddies kept asking me if my marrige was on the rocks. From slices, to shanks, to putts off the green. It all happened at once like some terrible nightmare, except I was fully awake and powerless to stop it. I never blew up or out. I calmly left the course, went home and drank 2-3 scotches trying to put my finger on the worst round in my life.
The next thing I did was put up a web page ad listing every golf club I owned. I listed every club, in single lined description, with the value of each to the side. At the bottom of the page I let my words flood a full paragraph as I finally dumped my anger and emotions on to my keyboard and explained to the whole world why I was giving up the game of golf. At the bottom of the $2500 price tag, I put this note.”50% off to the first guy that helps me quit.”
Three days later, I get this call from a local, where I ran the ad and he says he’s interested. He shows up at my door with a van full of clubs and starts telling me he wants to do some trades. I was a little upset and told him that he didn’t even read my ad. I said, “I’m trying to quit mister!”, and he said, “And I’m trying to keep you in the game.” I shook his hand laughing as he left. After four days of stewing, I deleted the ad and went back to the same course and shot an 80. If you quit on life you die, If you quit on golf, you’re just a loser.
Great entries, everyone.
Chris, the me vs. the course attitude is a good one to have, I think. You can’t control what anyone else does, so getting wrapped up in what other players are doing isn’t going to go anywhere positive.
Tony, nice change in attitude. It’s true that the more you practice the better you’ll play. And if someone can’t or won’t practice, then he just has to accept the game for what it is.
Mike, stick with it. You’ll be happier in the long run.
Blaine, I’m guessing there’s a lot of people that had their attentions diverted at that age. We probably all do to some degree. Good that you took up the game again.
Brad, not sure I’d put it that strongly, but I agree with your sentiment
. In a lot of cases, people walk away because they don’t properly manage their own expectations, for sure. Golf is supposed to be enjoyable, even if it can be frustrating at times. Anyone who isn’t getting enjoyment out of it anymore really needs to look inward for the explanation. I can see some people hanging up the clubs for a while because of financial or family reasons, but that’s probably more of a long-term hiatus than anything.
Brad – I loved your post. I’ve been there so many times…but I keep coming back.
There’s something that can help this. I know this is going to sound so distinctly unspiritual (in the golf sense, I mean)… I buy something new. So simple, but it works.
When I have a blow up game or have some crazy swing issue going on – if I want to give it up forever (not really)…I hit Golfdom and buy something. Doesn’t matter if it’s a book, a swing training aid, a new club, heck – even a new glove – I just buy something new. It seems to get me excited to go out and play again even if I have been a playing like a miserable hack.
This applies to other things as well. I try to run (keeps my belly from getting too big). But when I’ve slacked off for a few months, the best way to get back into it is to go buy a new pair of running shoes. Who knew…
Harry
I don’t know, Harry, you might be on to something there. A new club or set of clubs seems to get even the most range-averse players out there practicing for a little while.
So, for contest purposes, you never really give the game up, but what keeps you coming back is buying something new to renew your interest? I agree it’s not spiritual, and it doesn’t need to be, but hey, whatever gets you over the hump and back out on the course is OK in my book.
Yep – I guess you’re right…I never did really give it up, intense anger and frustration after a bad round, notwithstanding. So, in the interest of keeping within the rules of the contest and in keeping with the self-regulating nature of our chosen sport, I will defer my application to the others who actually did quit.
Maybe there will be an honorable mention for my quit elixir idea…
Don’t worry, you don’t have to have quit to enter, as per the contest rules. If you’ve never quit, you can tell me why. It seems like you did that already. Buying new stuff has kept you in the game!
Or you can certainly feel free to expand on other reasons you’ve never quit.
Back in the early 90′s while still studying for final exams a friend and I were playing some one on one basketball to blow offsome steam. And in an attempt to act like MJ or Barkley I jumped to block a shot and come down hard on my heels with straight legs. I did two things, I proved that yes white men can’t jump and pinched my siatic nerve.
My back was sore and tight and any movement was painful. Was in physio twice a week for about 6 weeks to stimulate the supporting muscles in the lower back and to stretch the nerve. Looking back the injury was a blessing in disguise because I enrolled for summer classes and it allowed me to focus on the classes.
Later in the year when the pain had subsided I went to the range to see if golf was feasible or not. To my surprise the movement help loosen the back and by winter the pain was virtually gone.
What I found was that for the next season my enthusiasm for the game increased. And personally I had one of my best season both non-competitively and competitively. Now whenever I feel my enthusiasm wane I take a week or two off.
One quick question about the rules “I’ll choose a winner on Friday, May 7, 2009″? I am assuming you mean May 8th
. If the post is late then, oh well, my bad for procrastinating.
Oops! It’s supposed to be May 8th. Let me just fix that right on up. I’ll probably select the winners Friday evening, so any entries received before that will be included.