Those days

Every golfer dreams of the perfect shots - some days they actually happen

As a 15 (or so) handicapper, I expect to shoot in the high 80s most of the time I go out to a full-length golf course. I expect to be close to 90, and less than that is good.

“Bogeys are pars” is kind of the way I look at things. I don’t like double-bogeys or worse. I should expect the not-infrequent par (that feels like a birdie) and should get to celebrate the very-infrequent ACTUAL birdies, all the while being happy to be playing the game I love.

And most of the time I do just that.

The nature of being a mid-handicapper, however, means that I shouldn’t be terribly upset at the occasional 100 on a tough course when the wind picks up and the pins are placed at their “Championship Sunday” locations. Because my game is intrinsically streaky, if I’m off, I’m off, and course conditions can do some damage to the scores of even the best players.

Then there are the other days.

You know the ones. Those days that are 26 degrees, the wind has cleared off, the putter shows up and helps you out and when you miss the fairway you still find a decent lie.

And all your putts seem to be uphill so you can have a proper run at them.

Those are the days that keep us coming back, despite the other days, when we’re fighting every shot to get it to fly the way we picture it in our heads, every miss ends up in a terrible place, and we’re always trying to stop our putts somewhere by the hole, because it’s a downhill slider. Every. Time.

For m those are the days that happen when I’m thinking through what I’m doing. I’m not taking the driver out when I don’t need more than 215 off the tee to have a short-iron into the green. They’re the days when I’m thinking about which side of the green is the right side to miss if it’s going to, and I play for that shot. Maybe I don’t attack pins because I don’t know if I’ve got a draw or a fade, or maybe I do, because my irons are dialed in.

It’s almost like I can plan those days, or at least help them happen, just by calming down and thinking things through.

Sure, part of it is just the nature of the game, the conditions on any given day and getting the right bounces, but at the same time, you can facilitate the likelihood of those days popping up just by reminding yourself about the times they most often do.

I’m going to try to do that more often.

Because those days are the fun ones.