Black and white and green all over

"Who are you?" Scott asks when I tell him that I played two rounds the other week.

Scott's confusion is understandable. When I lived in Seattle, I played golf maybe -- maybe - once a month, less if possible. He knew me from those days, when my play was laughable and I wore my frustration on my sleeve. No wonder he was puzzled at my newfound enthusiasm for the game.

These days, I have even more gusto for golf than anyone would have thought possible. (Though I still can't bring myself to watch it on TV -- let's not go crazy.) I have recently discovered the joy of reading about golf.

Actually, writing that sentence, reading about golf sounds a lot less exciting than watching it on television. No matter. I stand by my decisions.

At a used book sale this weekend, I hit a goldmine of golf books. These should keep me busy during the offseason, which will start any second now.

Notice any similarities?

The giant "Complete Encyclopedia of Golf Techniques" is something I doubt I would buy new. But the price was right. I have no idea if it will be helpful.

As for the others, I'm particularly looking forward to these two:

As I have written before, my putting game is pretty awful -- well, not pretty but it is awful. So I hope these two books will help me in the offseason. 

As for the rest? There's the obligatory Harvey Penick series:

The golfing memoir:

The literary anthology:

And, last but not least, the collection of 19th-century golf writing, without which no golf library is complete. Note the faux-leather binding:

You shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and I didn't. I picked this up because of the sweet fabric-and-pewter bookmark in the middle.

Future blog posts on these individual books are almost certain. Meanwhile, what are some of your favorite golf reads? Discuss in the comments.

Here's to the bad golfers

I can't watch golf on television. I never could. Before I started playing golf, the flattened, boob-tube version seemed so boring. The announcers spoke too quietly, the audiences responded too softly and the action – following the arc of a white ball into what was often a gray or cloudy sky – too lazy.

"Of course you don't like to watch it; you don't play golf," my friends who did watch the sport on TV would say. "If you played, you'd appreciate it more."

He's probably not watching golf.

Except that now I play. And I still don't appreciate golf on television. I've tried watching The Golf Channel but it holds no appeal. All my reasons for disliking the televised version of the game remain the same, with one addition:

I'm more interested in bad golf.

I can watch football, basketball and baseball on television with great interest because I can't -- and don't -- play any of those sports. It's the same reason guys watch action movies. 

Allmoviephotos.com

Doesn't everyone want to be Tom Cruise?

The game's appeal is in its participation, the fact that anyone can get out and attempt to play, no matter how awful. Oh, and most of us are awful. If we weren't then we'd be the ones featured on Sunday afternoon television during the football off-season, sinking putts and hawking Buicks.

I'm not alone in this sentiment, and not even close to one of the originators of this idea. I was surprised to read that A.A. Milne, the creator of Winnie the Pooh, was a terrible golfer. But did he let this get him down? Of course not. The man fought in World War I, for crying out loud. Instead, Milne celebrated the sport because it lets people like him (and me) participate. No other sport, he said, allows you to be quite so awful. He wrote this in his essay, "TheCharm of Golf," in 1919:

"Consider what it is to be bad at lawn tennis. True, you are allowed to hold on to your new racket all through the game, but how often are you allowed to employ it usefully? How often does your partner cry "Mine!" and bundle you out of the way? Is there pleasure in playing football badly? You may spend the full eighty minutes in your new boots, but your relations with the ball will be distant. They do not give you a ball to yourself at football.

"But how different a game is golf. At golf it is the bad player who gets the most strokes. However good his opponent, the bad player has the right to play out each hole to the end; he will get more than his share of the game. He need have no fears that his new driver will not be employed. He will have as many swings with it as the scratch man; more, if he misses the ball altogether upon one or two tees."

Well put. I can hardly believe this is the man who once prompted the great Dorothy Parker to declare in a book review of Milne's "The House at Pooh Corner": 

"Tonstant Weader fwowed up."

She should have seen him play.

What's the appeal of watching golf on television? Inquiring minds want to know.

Almost ready for the big-boy courses

The last time I played a course longer than Village Greens, a public course with 16 par-3s and two par-4 holes, since Sept. 16. That's when I hit a pathetic (even for me) 87 on the front nine at a course in Lancaster County and decided, then and there, I am not fit for the courses where actual golfers play.

What a day for fair-weather golfers.

So since then I've made it my mission to practice at a short course, without the intimidation of par-5 holes, dog-legs and water hazards. Even the par-56 Village Greens is a challenge for a novice like me. To even break into the single digits, I still would have to hit 43 over par.

Hardly the stuff of PGA legends.

Still, I've been able to stay in the 90s pretty regularly, in the last month. In my three rounds since Nov. 1, I've shot no higher than 99.

Which brings me to today's insight. I am trying to not worry about improvement, and just enjoy playing.

In my brief golfing career I have learned not to keep track of my score from hole to hole. Today provided a great lesson why. I began the day with a beautiful, arcing 5-iron shot from the first tee that landed a short pitch from the green. It could have been an easy bogey, assuming I could get on the green in my next shot and two-putt the hole. Instead, my pitch shot went two feet. The third shot past the green, too far to try putting it on from the fringe. So I pitched it again, this time getting it 20 feet from the hole.

That number – 20 feet – comes into play later in this round. Keep an eye out for it.

I couldn't even salvage a two-putt, needing instead to take four putts to sink the ball. I don't have the best putting game, but on the first hole I was unusually bad.

The second hole was almost the same story, but with a slightly better outcome. I hit the 5-iron again from the tees, 120 yards away, and this time overshot the green. This time a decent pitch got me on the green, but far from the hole, and I had to putt four times to sink it. For the first two holes, I was already at 14.

OK, I thought. Guess I'm not breaking 100 today. C'est la vie (French for, "I hate this stupid game").

So close, and yet so frustrating.

You need to play with a certain amount of detachment. The writer and sports psychologist Bob Rotella stresses playing in the moment, so that's what I did. Bad shots, missed putts — none of it mattered. Even on the ninth hole, a 250-yard par-4, I didn't let a dismal second shot undermine my game, and finished it with a double-bogey.

At this point, I was sorely tempted to check my score. I had hit at least two 8s, and three sixes on the front nine, and was still convinced that I wouldn't break 100. If I had looked at my score – 53 – that might have been the case. Instead, I accepted that the first nine holes were disappointing and resolved to play better on hole 10. After all, it's a new start.

My putting didn't improve much – I still three-putted where two would have worked. I keep overshooting the hole and haven't developed the skill to get the ball to decelerate. So on the 12^th hole, when I landed on the green from the tee, I couldn't do any better than a bogey.

The short hole 13 – a 95-yarder – was just as vexing. I hit it with my pitching wedge, assuming I would land short of the green. Somehow I overshot it, and bad putting combined to make it a 5 — the third in four holes so far on the back nine.

On hole 14, I made one of only two remarkable shots this day. It took me two shots to get on the green, where I landed 20 feet (and downhill) from the cup. All I wanted was the ball to get close to the hole for a bogey. But somehow it found the line I was aiming for and went straight in, giving me my only par of the day.

The second remarkable shot came on the 18^th hole. This hole gives me grief every time, because it's a long distance – 303 yards – and uphill. The green sits on a plateau that gets more difficult to reach the closer you get. It's like the land of Mordor from "Lord of the Rings" in that way. When I took my third shot, staring at the summit from about 90 yards away, I decided to skip my irons. I pulled out my 5-wood, hoping it would give me the loft I needed to land somewhere on the hill.

Isn't that why they call them fairway woods, anyway? For just such occasions?

My first shot of the day with the 5-wood was better than I expected. The ball flew straight and high, coming down short of the green and bouncing to a few feet of the cup. Even I could two-putt this. So I did, for my fourth bogey of the day and a final score of 96.

I didn't expect that. Hurrah for Dr. Bob Rotella. His living-in-the-moment philosophy seems to have some merit, even for those of us not on the tour.

We only have a few more weeks of good golf weather ahead of us in the Northeast, if we're lucky. I will try to play a par-70 or bigger course before retiring for the winter. I'll let you know how it goes.

When have you been pleasantly surprised on the golf course? Or anywhere for that matter?

The burden of expectations

It seems as inevitable as paying taxes, dying or remaking a comic-book movie. Eventually, if you keep practicing, you will get better. Maybe not good, but better.

 This has an upside: Who wouldn't want to suck less at a skill? That is the entire point of practicing, of persistence, of all those other "p" words that we associate with becoming good. The arc of the universe may bend toward justice, as the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, but the arc of practice bends toward proficiency.

The arc of sprinklers bends toward the ground.

Having said that, I have discovered a downside: The better you get at something, the more you expect yourself to do well. The past week on the golf course has proven an especially tough teacher.

 As I've written about before, I have forsaken most other golf courses around me in favor of Village Greens in Sinking Spring, Pa., a nice 18-hole course with 16 par-3 holes and two par-4s. For a novice golfer who can't hit the ball far, I can play the course without the intimidation that comes from encountering a long par-5 -- or a quartet of superior, and impatient, golfers. Once I do consistently better at this course, I should be able to play a regulation course without too much frustration and embarrassment.

A good first step, as I've also written before, is hitting better than 100 at Village Greens. Granted, that's still 43 over par to get into the double digits. But it seems a reasonable goal: In August my lowest score at the course was 101, and twice since then I've reached 100 without beating it. Besides, on a par-3 course, breaking 100 means lots of double bogeys -- a reachable goal, even for a beginner. It's easier to get a 5 on a par-3 than it is a 6 on a par-4 hole.

Whenever the turtles stay still for you,
it's going to be a good day.

Well, I finally did it. On Sunday I scored a 96, bogeying five of the first nine holes. On the back nine, even after scoring a 9 on one hole and an 8 on No. 18 -- an uphill par-4 -- I finished at just 40-over for the first time ever. Did I hit the ball better? Well, I putted better than usual, averaging 2.72 putts per hole, a little better than my average this year of 2.74. The big difference was my ability to get to the green in fewer shots. I hit the green from the tee just twice, but most other times it took me just two shots, which made making a bogey or double bogey much easier.

All the pretty bogeys.

The shameful 10th hole, where I scored that 9, it took me five shots to get on the green and four putts to reach the hole. But that's kind of the point. When I started, a 9 seemed normal. Now it's "shameful." As skill level improves, so does expectation.

Which brings me to today. It's likely that my 96 score on Sunday was an aberration, but I hoped it would be the start of a new cycle of better play.

 It was not. Well, not completely. Today I went out one more time in hopes of breaking 100. I would have been happy with 99. In truth, I should be happy with the 101 that I scored. I could tell from the first hole, when my putting game had already fallen apart, that today would not be a day to set a personal best.

Why was I disappointed? It's all about expectation. Even though I have only broken 100 at this course one single time, I now expect that I can do better than 101. But maybe I can't. Four months of playing golf is not enough time to take on the mantle of expectations; not when I'm still trying to improve all aspects of my game.

There is no timeline for improvement. Just because you had a good game yesterday does not mean you will have a good one today. Same with bad games. The key is to just keep swinging.

Not a record-setter, but better than most days.

Still, it would have been nice to hit one par or two today. Maybe next time.

Return of the swing

Bloggers are never supposed to apologize for taking long absences from their blogging duties. So I won't.

(I read that on a blog somewhere.)

I would like to say that the reason for my cyberspace silence these last few weeks is that I've been sequestered in a Himalayan monastery, studying the finer points of golf and getting in touch with my inner chi in order to improve my golf game. Oh, and that I finally broke 100 on a regulation golf course.

Photo credit: Sakhorn38

Mind if I play through?

Sadly, none of that is true. The only upside is that while I haven't been blogging about golf, I have been golfing quite a bit. In the past couple weeks, my experience has taught me some important lessons about this addicting, maddening game.

So here, for the first time, are some bits of Adam's Acquired Golf Wisdom ™ that I picked up from my recent play.

1. Golf is an utterly pointless activity.

No one ever saved the world with a round of golf. Golf can't cure cancer, won't stop global warming, doesn't prevent wars. Detractors call it a good walk spoiled, but you can do more good than simply walking in the time it takes to complete a round of golf.

That said, the sheer insignificance of golf is its charm. On a beautiful day – hell, even on an overcast, rainy day – a round of golf can give some relief from the harsh brutality of the real world.

Photo credit: hinnamsaisuy

Even in golf, it's important to keep things in perspective. 

On Sept. 11, 2001, I was living in Seattle, the other side of the continent from the terrorist attacks. I couldn’t talk to anyone in New York or D.C. I couldn't help. All we on the left coast could do was watch the horror unfold, over and over on television. Many of us couldn't even work; all the tall buildings in downtown Seattle closed out of fear another rogue jetliner would strike.

So my friends Nestor and Scott and I did the only thing we could do: We hit the golf course. And for four hours, we tried (not always successfully) to put the events of 9/11 out of our minds.

And in September of this year, I went to play golf on another bright, sunny day while my friend John was in the hospital, struggling to recover from brain surgery. On the eighth hole at Hawk Valley Golf Club in Denver, Pa., my phone rang. I recognized the number, knowing what the news was, but let it go to voice mail.

On the ninth tee I hit a long, straight shot — my best shot on a day when I had scored 87 through eight holes — but couldn't find it in the middle of the fairway, so I left it there. I had other business to attend.
In the parking lot, as my playing companions moved on to the back nine, I sat in my car and returned the call to John's sister, who let me know he had died the night before.

The only green I hit at Hawk Valley in fewer than 8 shots. 

Once again, I felt helpless on a golf course, standing on the other side of the continent while my friend in California died in a hospital. I had gotten a phone call a week before, letting me know he had emergency surgery. His sister gave me regular updates on his condition. I couldn't visit; all I could do was hope he'd get better. He didn't.

Two days later I played 18 holes with my brother-in-law. Because what else can you do, when you can't do anything?

You can play golf.

I didn't expect to go on this long about such a depressing subject. I'll share more of Adam's Acquired Golf Wisdom™ in my next post, and promise it won't be nearly so goddamn morose.

At the driving range, in the driving rain

What is the point of the driving range?

That's not a rhetorical question: I went to a range earlier this week and did the obligatory practice putting, practice chipping and practice swinging the club. All I learned is that I am as wildly inconsistent when the ball is sitting on a rubber tee with nowhere to go as when I'm on an actual course trying to put the tiny sphere into a cup.

You might argue that the driving range is where you're supposed to figure out your swing, work out the kinks, etc. It doesn't help. All I do is hit bad shots (and bad putts and bad chips) over and over again, with the occasional -- and unreproducible -- sweet swing.

I can do that on an actual golf course, and get some exercise in, to boot.

My experience on the driving range this week wasn't a total loss. Thanks to the range markers, I did learn that I can hit the ball consistently, no matter what the club, about 100 yards. That's with a 4-iron, 5-iron, 7-iron, 5-wood or driver. Good to know.

Now back to the course.

Rainy Day Golfing #12 & 35

For all my other golfing faults, at least you can't call me a fair-weather golfer. Today, Labor Day, I worked my way through 18 holes at Manor Golf Club in Sinking Spring, Pa., slogging through a soggy front nine before the sun finally showed, ever so briefly, later in the afternoon.

I half-expected to see werewolves out on a day like this.

At first I thought I had a way with rain; the first hole, an uphill par-4, provided my first birdie in more than 10 years. Immediately after that, I fell apart. The second hole a par-3, resulted in a 6 (although, to my surprise, I only two-putted it). After that I had two eights, a 10 and a 9.

The 10 that came on hole five was my best guess; after eight shots of not hitting the green, I gave up that hole. It took me four putts to finish with a 9 on the next hole, but I did manage a bogey on hole 7 before finishing the front nine with a 10 and a 12, respectively. On both holes I estimated my score because getting to the green was as futile to me as building a perpetual-motion machine.

The back nine went much better. I bogeyed the 10th hole and double-bogeyed the 11th. One hole 12 I hit another 10, but at least this was honest: It was a par-5 and I took five shots to make it on the green, followed by five putts. The other par-5 on the back nine was a little bit better. I still scored a 10, but at least I was able to two-putt. Yes, that means I needed eight shots to get on the green.

Give me a break. I'm new at this.

So close! So very close!

The weather cleared up on the back nine, where I finished with a 62 (compared to 71 on the front). Still, I don't blame the rain. Frustration and impatience set in on a number of those first holes.

How can you tell? Note the lack of putting on one-third of the front nine.

Golf is a game best played with an attitude of, "embrace the suck." If you can't be good, you might as well just try your best and have fun. Rain or shine. Luckily I learned that lesson before the day ended.

One of my goals for this year has been to finish a round with double-par or better. I scored a 133 today, seven shots better than the 140 I had hoped for. Next time, I hope to reach the same goal, but this time finishing every hole.

Even if it means something worse than a 12 on the scorecard.

Speaking of scorecards, here's mine from today:

And here's a look at my latest putting stats. They're getting a little bit better.

As is my average scoring, though I'm still far from average:

Keep foozling that niblick!

Don't hate the driver

One of the most oft-used pieces of advice that novice golfers receive is:

Don't Use The Driver.

It's the most difficult club to hit. It will ruin your game. It will run off with your spouse and steal your credit cards.

To be sure, it is tough to hit a driver WELL. But at the par-56 course today, I was struggling with every other aspect so that when I reached the par-4 ninth hole, I decided to try my driver, a Mitsushiba that I'd found in a thrift store many years ago.

The results were, in short, not horrible. I hit the ball far and slightly to the left, but it landed close enough to the green that I was able to reach it in three shots. I finished with a 7, a score I've gotten before on that same hole. It felt good to know it was my lousy putting that cost me, rather than horrible shots to the green.

It all went downhill after the first hole.

By hole nine, I had already resigned myself to a day of terrible putting. After one-putting on the first hole for a bogey, I played terribly on the green the rest of the day. Forget about three-putts: I had to four-putt some holes (including an otherwise satisfactory ninth) and on one ignominious occasion, a five-putt.

My putts alone were one-under on the front nine. Oy.

So I spent the back nine figuring out how to putt. It may have made a difference; I made 27 putts on the front nine and 26 on the back.

But back to the driver; At Village Greens in Sinking Spring, Pa., only two holes -- nine and 18 -- are long enough to warrant anything but an iron from the tee. After my relative success on hole nine, I tried Mitsushiba on the last hole. Once again it went left, but had good distance. A line of trees to the left of the fairway kept my ball from going into the street. Hey, I'll take any help I can get. From there I needed three more shots to get on the green. It sounds like a lot, but I was pretty pleased with the last shot, one I took with my lob wedge that got me slightly uphill of the hole.

I finished the hole with a 7, three-putting to finish. On this kind of day, three-putts don't bother me. As much.

Finished with a 106. My scores keep going up,
not down.

The goal of cutting down on three-putts eluded me to day. I probably don't need to point out that my goal of breaking 100 at Village Greens was just as unreachable.

I suspect the two are related.

Here are more stats from today's game:

Putting is my downfall

Of all the ways that golf can frustrate the beginning golfer -- and there are many -- this week none compared with the vexing art of putting. All the good shots from the tee on seem wasted once you get on the green and you need a million shots just to triangulate the hole, even though you can see that IT'S RIGHT THERE! IT'S RIGHT FRICKIN' THERE!

Hole 2 at Village Greens in Sinking Spring, Pa.
That water hazard is only there after hurricanes.

In a good week, I'll play the par-56 Village Greens course on a Monday or Tuesday, so I have time later to play a more challenging par-70(ish) course. As I've mentioned before, courses that are heavy with par-3 holes are great for beginners, providing the right amount of challenge without making you feel you have to crush the ball.

Where the game gets vexing -- as it does on any course, no matter the length -- is on the green. After last week, when I shot 101 (which is, yes, still 45 over par), I felt confident I could break 100 on Monday. The weather was nice, I was more familiar with the course and something has to be said for all the golf I've been playing. Right?

Right?

As it turns out, no. During play I never bothered adding up my score. I simply recorded my strokes at the end of each hole, relaxed and assured that I was having a good day on the course. When I checked my round score after getting a 7 on the rather difficult 18th hole (two previous scores there were 8 and 10), I was surprised to find I had shot a 104, three strokes worse than last week.

Then I counted my putts at each hole and I wasn't surprised anymore.

I three-putted the first hole for a 5, but managed to par hole 2 after getting my tee shot on the green and a pair of well-executed putts. Those must have been the exceptions of the day; only once more on the front nine was I able to two-putt, and I finished that hole with a 5. I two-putted two other holes on the back nine. On hole 13, when I once again hit the green from the tee, it took me three putts to finish the hole with a bogey.

I know a birdie at this stage of my playing is unrealistic. But a par would have been nice.

I can't blame just the putting. Many chip shots put me on the green so far out of range of the hole that one-putting was unrealistic. Had I played a better short game, I might not have needed so many putts to finish the hole. In one forgettable case, I two-putted the ball to the lip of the hole, but it wouldn't budge.

Where's Bill Murray's Carl from "Caddyshack" when you need him?

The best part of the day was my ignorance of the actual score until I finished my round. It made for a much more relaxing round. And relaxation is key when you need three putts (and in one horrible case, four) to finish a hole.

Here's my scorecard, along with the ignominious putting statistics. I still hope to be able to break 100 at Village Greens before the end of the year.

Next round will probably be back at Village Greens. Now I only have to beat a 104.

The day I retired my woods -- for now

I have started a Golfing Noob Tumblr account, where I chronicled last week's outing at Rich Maiden, a lovely 18-hole course near Fleetwood, Pa.

The biggest discovery I made was that I hit my 3-iron off the tee better than my driver or even my 3-wood. So for the entire back nine, I kept all my woods in the bag (with one exception: Once I used the 5-wood on the fairway). The result was better, but it still highlighted my woeful short game an lack of putting skills.

I ended the day with a 152 -- better than my all-time high of 156, but still a terrible score.

The round helped me clarify some of my goals for the remainder of this year:

• Shoot double-par or better on a par-70 course;
• Break 100 at Village Greens, which has a par of 56;
• Cut my three-putts in half. 

That third goal is inextricably linked to the first two. They say beginning golfers should practice putting more than driving. Oh brother is that true.

Here's a look at Thursday's game, by the numbers:

If my lob wedge were a person, I would write it out of the will

Amazing what one little piece of swing advice can do to your game.

I have been reading "Harvey Penick's Little Red Book" and "Fundamentals of Hogan" for tips on how to swing properly, something I never really studied. For years I followed the model of, watch your friends swing and try to do what they do (only left-handed). I didn't notice any improvement until today, playing at Village Greens in Sinking Spring.

My advice to beginning golfers: Par-3 courses are better than driving ranges for practicing your game. Short holes, (usually) forgiving fairways and real-life pitching and putting experience that won't cost you much more than a bucket of balls.

Anyway, last night after getting home from work I watched an instructional video from on swinging where the pro stressed the importance of keeping your left (right) arm glued to your chest on the backswing. A minor lesson, sure, but I'm certain I never did that with any consistency. So today, that was my goal: Keep that right arm close to the chest.

I've said this before but it bears repeating: My golf game is so bad that it needs a million fixes. However, that one remedy improved my score more than I expected. I hit more tee shots that went straight and far, and was consistently within reach of a bogey or double bogey on almost every hole -- the exception being hole 18, which one day I will conquer.

Oh, yeah. That's a gimme.

No hole went better than No. 2, where I hit the ball well for three shots to get it on the green. My third shot got the ball less than two inches from the cup for an easy bogey. From there things got slowly, but steadily, worse: two 5s, two 6s and a 7 before I told myself to calm down and go back to enjoying myself. I three-putted hole No. 8 for a 6, but that meant I got on the green in par. Which was good enough. Hole No. 9 was another triple bogey, thanks to some bad strikes with my lob wedge. The good news was I was able to two-putt it for a 7, giving me 50 on the front nine — six strokes better than last week's round at the same course.

I was much more consistent on the back nine, but the lob wedge continued to give me headaches. The 10th hole was just a big white circle with the pin on the fairway – the green was being repaired. All I had to do was get the ball to land in the white circle and count that. But I kept skimming the ground with the lob wedge, overshooting the target over and over. What could have been a par* resulted in a 6.

On hole 13 I had a legitimate chance at a birdie but ended up three-putting for a bogey instead. The good news is I only three-putted two other times on the back nine. In addition to keeping my right arm close on my backswing, my other goal today was keeping the putts down.

Hole 18, at 305 yards, continued to be trouble. I hit the first shot straight down the fairway but my second shot landed under some trees. I shot it out with a 9-iron but lost it, resigned to take a penalty drop. As I hit my next stroke I found the original ball, halfway up a steep hill where the green sat on top. I played my original ball and managed to get it on the green, but an agonizing three-putt gave me the only 8 of the day.

I guess it's a sign of progress when an 8 on the scorecard is an aberration rather than an expectation.

What I like about golf is that the moment before the swing, you are all concentration and living in the moment. At those times when you can keep your mind still and follow it with a well-executed stroke, the game is sublime.

One final note: I finished the game with a 101 – still unable to break 100 on even a par-3 course, but that is 18 strokes better than last week. I call that progress.

Today's scorecard:

The latest environmental danger: terrible golfers

Great day for golf.

The intent seems noble enough: create a wildlife sanctuary in a public golf course. I don't know how much the animals enjoy the constant threat of errant golf balls flying into their habitat.

In this weekend's round, I mercifully missed their homes as often as I missed the greens. No animals were harmed during my game at Colonial Acres; only my golf score.

Colonial Acres is a public, nine-hole golf course in a suburban development outside Albany, N.Y. It's also an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary, meaning if you hit your ball into some of the wildlife-inhabiting hazards along the course, you're not allowed to go looking for it, lest you disturb the habitat of the fauna within. The course has wide, forgiving fairways combined with vicious greens that make the course much tougher than it appears. Thankfully, none of the protected animals actually served as hazards.

I was in town for a family reunion. It turns out that the only three people in my extended family interested in golf are my brother-in-law, my father (whose "interest" level is somewhere below the Fed's prime rate) and me. And we all live within 15 minutes of one another.

I started strong on the first hole with a bogey. The tee was less than 90 yards from the flag and I overshot it with my 7-iron. Two more shots got me on the green, and a nice, long putt – the best putt of the day, and probably of my life – gave me a 4 for the hole.

My brother-in-law got a 5; it is probably the last time I will start the next hole before him.

After that it was a series of topped shots, slices, overshot greens and general mayhem. I didn't score the dreaded 10 (or 3 in binary) but on two of the nine holes I got a 9. Only three other times did I even triple-bogey. Twice I hit my tee shot on to a different fairway.

On hole six, I ruined an otherwise good tee shot by playing the wrong ball. My first shot went straight-ish, landing in front of some trees to the left of the fairway. I looked everywhere for it, finally spotting a white ball about 50 yards or so from the tee. It took me five more shots, including one from a bunker, to get onto the green, where I (at least) was able to two-putt for a 9. But somewhere between shots four through eight I noticed a little swoosh on the side of my ball; I'd hit someone else's Nike after my tee shot.

Oh well, I thought. The Wilson Titanium ball I started with must have been lost to oblivion. Maybe one of the animals on the course appropriated it.

The next hole went in the opposite direction. I hit my tee shot wildly to the left, onto the fairway of the aforementioned hole (Why couldn't I have done that earlier?). As I approached my ball, I found Wilson , not 30 yards from the last green, just six inches off the fairway.

No wonder I couldn't find it before. I hit it too well.

A trip to the par-3 Village Greens course seems in order this week. I need to work on improving my short game and my putting as evidenced by some horrid three-putts I can't blame on Colonial Acres' cruel, cruel greens.

On a plus side, I didn't lose any balls to the wilderness or the water hazard on hole 9. And I came home with a Nike.

Here's the brutal truth about Saturday's game, also known as my scorecard:

Colonial Acres was also the first time I tried scoring with the free Golfshot app on my iPhone. I'll post those stats here periodically, too.

That one bogie looks awful small in the pie.

Nongolfers have it wrong about Mark Twain

Blogging, like brushing one's teeth, ought to be a daily activity. The main difference is, one only needs to take two minutes; the other, if you're doing it well, can take much longer.

I'll leave it to you to guess which is which.

So I created a bit of a dilemma for myself with this blog, where I'm supposed to write about taking up the sport anew after a long layoff and making progress (or not) in a quest for a below-100 score. I don't play golf every day, you see. I don't even go to the driving range more than once a week.

To be completely frank, I only went to the driving range once, two weeks ago, since digging my clubs out of the basement.

But golf is a sport that allows lots of time for contemplation. When you're not on the course, it's still easy to think about golf, whether pondering The Game or simply a game in the past. (In my head I've been reliving the par I got on the front nine of Village Greens earlier this week; my best tee shot ever.) So I'm afraid, dear reader, that on the days I don't have thrilling tales of birdies and niblicks, I will share my thoughts on golfing miscellany.

Which brings me to Mark Twain.

The common belief is that America's first great humorist once said of golf that it is "a good walk spoiled." Sportswriter John Feinstein used that phrase for the title of his book about the PGA tour and you hear it from just about anyone who disparages the game.

You can see why: It's short, pithy and mildly insulting without being offensive. There's just one problem: Mark Twain probably didn't say it.

I intended to write a post about how America's first great humorist dissed the game and analyze his reasons for poking fun at golf. I'm sure they would have been fun. But some quick research convinced me that of all the quips Mark Twain made, calling golf a good walk spoiled was not one of them.

The good folks at Quote Investigator came up with some convincing evidence that the saying originated somewhere besides Twain's pen. F. W. Payn, for instance, in "Secrets of Lawn Tennis," published in 1902, referred to a jockey who said of golf that it "merely spoilt a good walk."

As Yogi Berra could sympathize with Twain. He was once (possibly mis-)quoted saying "I never said half the things I said."

I can laugh at the saying, regardless of who coined it. But since taking up the sport this second time around, I respectfully disagree with the sentiment. For all its frustration, golf has a meditative quality I didn't appreciate the first time around.

Because even for duffers and foozlers like me, the object of the game -- hit a tiny ball into a larger hole -- doesn't warrant the stress, frustration and anger that some people (me included, sometimes) get from it.

Why, after all, would you want to spoil a perfectly good walk?