No. 24: Slice of Shame
Dear Pards,
6’1, 210lb +0.4, washed-up D2 player, turned NARP, with two young ones at home. Most of my golf these days has become a random twilight lap after work or a Tuesday-afternoon work scramble. Definitely no practice.
That said, it’s always been a back-seat goal to play in the US Mid-Am one day. With the wife and kids out of town for a week, I circled this day on the calendar a while back. I even put a net up in the garage and started getting some swings in after putting the kids down.
While my expectations were still quite low, the qualifier was at a course close to home, which I’ve played a million times. If there was a place I could get hot for 18 holes, this was it.
And boy did I.
After a three-tweeter start, I was already thinking about the illustrious TC. Then I proceeded to make a reverse turkey on the next three, which got me right back to even. A nice birdie on nine got me back in red numbers, and again, I couldn’t help but let my mind go to what could be.
I had a hunch that -1 might be good enough. Every par that passed felt like another round of Jenga. Just get me in the house before this tower collapses.
I found a way to keep the stack upright as I walked off the 16th green to the 17th tee. Short-ish par 4. OB right, but the entire county left. In fact, with a back right pin, the next fairway over on the left, I’d argue, is the best angle for the second. (Sorry, Ross)
For all the trouble this course brings, this hole doesn't typically kill rounds. Yet every time I play here, I flirt with, if not succumb to, the asphalt over the hedges right.
My thoughts on the tee:
Set up left of left.
Definitely less than driver.
Should I just hit 5 iron 5 iron?
No, I’m hitting driver well.
Maybe just a choked-down one.
Top of my backswing:
If I’m set up too far left I could slice it more.
Wait, is it even my tee?
This is going right.
Think you can guess what happens next. A ball that’d make the blowpig’s driver look like a draw. Quite possibly right of the road I needed to avoid. Leading to a double with a bogey on top at the last to shoot +2 and miss by two.
The final score I’m not mad at, but how it happened was enough for me snap my driver in half before my clubs even made it to the car after the round.
Why do we always do the one thing we know we can’t do, at the absolute worst time?
-Thirteen Clubs in Amherst
Dear Thirteen Clubs,
You know that verse in the Bible where Jesus says if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away?
If you’re anything like me, you know that–while the post-round snap felt good in the moment–the driver is not the real problem. In fact, there are 13 other clubs in your bag that you know how to sin miss left with. What if the real root of the habitual left ball you know you can’t hit stems from a lack of expectation?
Though you told yourself not to hit it into the road, you had zero hope you could hit it anywhere else. As you know, the more you look left, the easier it gets to lose it right. There might even be a shameful part of you who’d say you deserved to make double based on how good your round was going up to that point. Trust me, I’ve been there. More times than once.
Next time, I’d suggest replacing those stubborn, callous swing thoughts with a more tender, responsive approach, realizing that an expectant heart hits more fairways than one of stone. You very well might make the same mistake again, but it doesn’t mean you have to.
Closing the face can’t hurt either.
P╞r╠℮P.S. All month, the stamp at the top of the newsletter will be St. Andrews, by Dave Baysden, in honor of the last major happening this week in the UK. It’s also the art on this month’s print for members of the Postage Club.
You know who else knows how to flail a driver right? The 2017 Open Champion, who is making his return to Birkdale this week for golf’s final and best major of the year. I’ve been semi-public about my Spieth sobriety over the last half-decade. That said, I’m ready to ditch the five-year chip in my pocket the moment he gets into red figures in Southport on Thursday.
If you’re into coffee golf as much as I am, you might also enjoy our monthly mail club. I just dropped 167 envelopes in the mail yesterday morning that’ll make their way across the world over the next few days, and I’d love to send one to you as well. Inside you’ll find a letter I wrote to St. Andrews on the back of a Dave Basyden print of the Old Course, a postcard (with a stamp on it) of Royal Birkdale, and a personal note from me to you. If all that still makes you skeptical, use code PARDS for the first month free, then cancel if it feels like another bill. Thankful you’re here.
