Fun. Exuberance. Joy. Remember those words
It's been a busy year this 2020. We have this minor disturbance called the Covid-19 virus. Everything is closed. Social distancing has become part of the vernacular. My son PJ is heading to the Pecos League in CA. to play baseball in July. His shoulder surgery went well and he feels no pain for the first time is 8 years. My daughter Victoria finished her loose ends and has moved to Philadelphia and is working from home in her job as the #3 in a startup video company. Now the empty nest syndrome starts for MaryAnne and me. We are starting to plan our retirement move to Delaware. Also what has started is how to live for me again.
I played a whole 18 holes on Sunday. It marked the second time this year I got out. That makes 6 range appearances and 2 course appearances. From the time I left the driveway to the course to the time I got home 8 hours later, I was in a great mood. I played with Andy from work and two of his weekly cohorts. I had no expectations of score except to make it between 80 and 85. Just keep it in the fairway and guess your iron distances (Imagine playing that little all of you). At 63 it is hard for me to swing my stiff steel anymore. I realized then that I will need new clubs this year. But by adding a club to what the distance marker said, I managed a birdie and three 10 footers that I could have made (if the greens were anything close to level and smooth). We won our overall and the $20 prize. I shot an 82. Given that I had no warmup at the range and touched a club 27 days ago, an 82 was satisfying. The next day we spent an hour talking about the round. How we pulled off shots and deflated our opponents. For him, it was satisfying to beat them. For me it was different.
I felt the joyful effects of playing again. The pure joy of playing not just for score but to have fun and maybe win. The talking about it afterwards and feeling the joy of how it felt to play. How it felt to go thru the scenario of a shot and the thrill of pulling it off and hearing your partner share in that excitement. Maybe some of us have forgotten that is what it feels like for a newbie to pull a shot off. That's what is most important. Nothing else. The pure satisfaction of trying a shot and making it. We need to promote that and promote that heavy. Maybe a lot of you play too often or play the same course and have lost that feeling. But try it and ask yourself what better promotion is there for this game than the pure joy of the shot. We need to promote new teeing concepts to make the second shot set up a birdie chance not discourage the player. We need shorter courses which are less costly to maintain and more fun for the average golfer. You remember the average golfer-the ones who kept the game alive while we attempted to self-destruct. Fun. Joy. Exuberance. Let's start using these words again. Now.
