No matter what course I play, I never really know which version of me is actually going to show up that day.
Some days, I’m reasonably fine off the tee. And by “fine,” I mean I didn’t lose ten balls. I spend most of the day hitting out of the rough. Maybe a few tasteful kicking wedges out of the shrubs and various other flora. But I can usually find the ball, and that alone feels like progress.
Other days, the driver is John Wick.
Post-puppy.
Then there are the irons. Sometimes they cooperate. Short irons? Manageable. Wedges? Serviceable. Mid-irons, on a good day, will do something resembling what they were designed to do. Long irons, though? Forget it. I swing long irons like a giraffe standing up for the first time. All legs. No coordination. No future. That’s always a worm burner.
Putting? Total mystery.
I’ve had rounds where I’m two-putting everything and feeling downright professional. Lag putts so good the group behind us thinks I know what I’m doing. I’ve also had rounds where I five-putt a par four and later have to lie to myself about what happened.
Same round.
The maddening part is how wildly this changes from hole to hole. Shot to shot.
I’ve had rounds where I absolutely crushed a drive. And when I say crushed, I mean real crushed. Not Snowman crushed. Magical. Three hundred yards. Maybe a few more. It’s only fair to note the seventy-two-knot tailwind and the once-in-a-decade closed clubface. But still, the golf gods briefly smiled upon me.
The very next hole, I hit my driver ten yards.
Ten.
It was the worst over-the-top move since Stallone’s arm-wrestling masterpiece. I came down so steep I took a six-inch-deep divot with my driver. Same club. Same swing. Painfully different results.
That’s golf saying, “That’s what you get for flexing on the last hole like an idiot.”
But that’s what happens when you play golf whenever life allows. There’s no rhythm. No muscle memory. Just chaos, sprinkled with the occasional miracle that convinces you to tape an aspirin to it and go back out there.
The truth is, I’m not a good golfer. And I’ve come to terms with the fact that I probably never will be.
And that’s okay.
I’ll still enjoy the sunshine. I’ll still crack open a cold Miller Lite. And if everything breaks right, I’ll have a good afternoon wandering around a golf course, wildly unsure of which golfer is going to show up next.
Life is still great with an eight.