Why I Hate Golf

Today was the first round of the Club Championship. Imagine my surprise when I found myself in the sixth of seven flights. God, has my game gotten so bad that I am nearly in the bottom flight again? It's all good though, because I should be able to compete.

I show up at the golf course, finding my center. Live in the moment...accept the mental challenge...play one shot at a time...you can par any hole. After two holes, I am looking at the other players in my flight and thinking, "I can beat any of these guys, any day. They really suck." This really should be the year for me to win my flight. Why then am I down two after two holes? To his credit, my opponent had managed to make two pretty spectacular pars to win the first two holes. I par the third, and somehow manage to win the fourth with a double bogey.

Ah, good, I am back to even. Then the wheels really come of. A triple bogey, followed by another double bogey puts me back down 2. I will never get any closer. He wins the eighth to go up 3. I then proceed to alternate pars with double bogeys to oscillate back and forth between 2 down and 3 down, until sadly I am down three with three holes to play.

Defeat creeps in, but I say, "Bullshit, I'm not beat yet. Just win the next three holes and force a playoff!" I win the next one. Down two with two to go. The next to the last hole is a par 3, and I have to hit to the green to assure a par, and hope he screws up. I DO NOT hit to the fucking green. I hit to the fucking sand trap. He tees off and pulls it horribly left. Hope springs back in.

I get to my ball, and discover it in an impossible to hit location in the sand trap. Hope fades. He dinks his second shot into the sand trap. Hope leaps forward. I take a mighty swing at my hopelessly buried ball, and barely get out of the trap. Hope fades. I hit a perfect pitch to within three feet of the pin. Hope arises again. He hits out of the sand trap to 20' from the hole. We are both lying three. He with 20' to putt, me with 3'. If I make mine and he misses his, I win the hole and we go the last hole with me only down one. Hope and elation are battling each other for the front seat in my mind.

Then he putts...straight into the fucking hole from 20' to win the match. Abandon hope.

And that, my friends, is why I hate golf..