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.