New Past-time

All winter long, my friends in the curling league kept bugging me that I needed something to do in the summer leisure hours. Of course to them that meant golf. My thoughts were that golf was just about on par as watching 'paint dry'. It is just something that had never interested me in my whole life.

Along came spring and those glorious days of early summer. James convinced me that I should at least take 'a walk-a-bout' of the golf course and give it a whirl. After a lot of convincing on James part, I finally relented and said that I would give it a try.

James and I are both left handed golfers, so I was able to borrow his clubs. The long and short of it was that he 'kicked my ass' on the course, but he did plant the seed that this might be something that I might like. Craig came out of the city and once again convinced me to give it a try out on the links. Once again, Craig also is a left shot, so we were good to go and we headed out and gave it another go. Once again I got my assed kicked as I was such a horrible new golfer. However, I do believe the seed was planted and I really did enjoy 'walking about' on the course and just generally being outside.

After numerous outings (many, many, by myself), I now feel a bit more comfortable out on the course. Of course Tiger Woods definitely has nothing to worry about from me, but at least I'm not making a fool of myself.

This past weekend, I headed out on the course with James and then tonite I was out again with Craig. I'm satisfied that I at least made my goal for the year in that I surpassed both of my 'teachers' in a round.




Now granted both James and Craig probably had a 'crappy day/game' on the day of these rounds, but to me the important thing is that I didn't have to hang my head after I got my ass kicked one more time. We all have bad games, but for both of these games/rounds at least I had a better score than my teachers.

I'm sure James or Craig will have a better score than me in the future rounds, but at least in my mind I know I can hold my own. As I said above, I know Tiger et al have nothing to fear from me, but I at least have nothing to be ashamed about when I hit the links with my family and/or friends.

With that being said, yesterday (September 16th), Craig and I took Shar-Lee out for a round of golf. Like myself, Shar-Lee had never golfed in her life and was a bit apprehensive of 'giving it a try'. Being that this is only my first year, I certainly knew her feeling well and attempted to alleviate her apprehensions. On her first go at the course, Shar-Lee had an 82. Certainly not a course record, but I personally know people that are higher than that and have been golfing for many years. As we went around the holes, I could see that Shar-Lee was getting better and better with her strokes. She has great form and with a bit of practice I know she'll be able to have some respectable scores and give Craig, James or I a run for our money.

The nice part of living in a small town is that our golf course is not crowded and there is not a lot of pressure from oncoming golfers to 'get on with it'. You can take your time and try to ensure you are ready to hit the ball to the best of your ability. For a grand total of $5.00 a round or $45.00 for the year, there just is no better place to learn the game of golf. Sure we don't have grass greens, but at least you can learn the basics and when you do get a bit more experience you can then attempt the more ambitious courses that the cities have.

However, for a beginner, there just is nothing better than a small town course in my estimation. . .