Golfmosis

Last December, I turned 40. It wasn’t the devastating milestone for me that it is for many people. I don’t feel anywhere near 40 so that number doesn’t even seem relevant. Sometimes after walking 36 holes, my body feels 39 but I still consider myself just a kid (much to the chagrin of my wife). Speaking of my wife, when it comes to gifts, she always puts a ton of thought into them and would almost always prefer to give something more than just a “thing”. Concert tickets, weekend golf trips, dinner at a premium steak house are examples of some of her prior offerings. This time, she concocted a wonderfully creative gift for this most dreaded of birthdays. Vowing her unwavering support, I was told to go and play no fewer than 40 golf courses I had never played before. The catch was, I had to complete this task before I turned 41. Now 40 courses in 12 months sounds easily doable to most of you avid golfers out there I’m sure. However, even though I live in an area with over 230 golf courses, over the last 20+ years, I’ve managed to get out to most of them that I cared to play. Also, at the time, my daughter was only 11 months old. She is quite demanding of our time so that was going to work against me. On the plus side, the weather here makes almost every day a potential golf day. Sure, sometimes the temps are on the cool side. January and February are usually windy and cold with not a blade of green grass in sight. For those of you up north, I am talking about playing golf in the dead of winter so obviously it’s not the kind of cold you’re used to. Conversely, hacking around the fairways in the summertime here is like walking on the surface of the sun wearing a turtleneck sweater. Again, not comfortable, but not bad enough to keep me away. In a nutshell, playing opportunities would not be an issue.

Besides the thumbs up on project 40 x 41, she gave me something else I had never had…..a brand new box of a dozen Titleist Pro V1s. I would sometimes buy a box of refurbed Pro Vs or I’d play one I found in the woods or fished out of a pond, but this was a brand spankin’ new box. I kinda felt like a person does when they’ve gotten a brand new car. You can’t wait to drive it all around town or go on a road trip but for the first few months you can’t even park it away from home for fear of getting scratches or door dings. If you’re not used to playing premium golf balls, I suggest you go and get a box. The balls themselves may or may not make you play better, but if you’re like me, they’ll encourage you to make better decisions on the course when it comes to risk. It pains me to no end when I lose a $4 ball. I’m cheap that way. In order to experience this feeling less often, I found myself doing things on the course that had never crossed my mind before. I concentrated harder. I chose higher percentage shots. I watched errant shots more carefully in order to give me a better chance of finding them The net of this new attitude was fewer penalty strokes. Depending on the course, it didn’t always translate into lower scores, but I sure felt better about my rounds and I had a lot more fun. I did finally lose all of these balls but that dozen lasted me longer than any dozen balls I’ve ever had. Try it sometime. It might work for you too.

With all the holiday travel, shopping, events etc, I didn’t get to start my quest until after Christmas. I had been wanting to play a resort course in the hills above a lake near my mothers house. My sister and her family were visiting for the holidays so I persuaded my Brother-in-law to tee it up with me and get this thing started. We woke up to a cold and gloomy morning but not to worry, I had checked the forecast the day before. The high was supposed to be 36 degrees Fahrenheit with a chance of snow flurries. AWESOME! No lightning so we were good to go! What we didn’t know was that the high for that day was reached before we got up at around 6am. Did I mention that the course was in the hills above a lake? Did I mention that it’s windy in this part of the country? Frickin’, frackin’ cold is what it was! By the time we completed our round, it was snowing lightly, our extremities were useless and snot had frozen our mouths shut. At least this way I my Brother-in-law couldn’t cuss me for insisting that he come along. That was the second coldest round I’ve every played, but that’s another story for another post.

So off I went, determined to complete this year long journey. I’ve played 25 new courses so far and I’ve got my yearly golf buddy trip (Golffest 2008 – will post on this later) coming up so I’m still on track to finish my 40. Most of these courses are within a few hours of my home. A few of them are a little farther away. I’m keeping all the scorecards and entering my rounds into an online USGA handicap system. I was hoping to see a downward trend in my scores but so far, They’ve been pretty consistent. I guess that’s to be expected when only playing courses I’ve never seen before.

From time to time, I’ll post a review of a new course I’ve played. Hopefully, this blog will be around long enough to get all 40 in the books.