Rolling the Little White Ball

My mother often told me that "life isn't fair." I accept that. It is also quite strange and full of unexpected twists and turns.

As most of you know, I play golf. It's not an obsession, I only play 3 times a week and only rarely go to a range to practice. This is below the norm for this retirement oriented Paradise. Some folks play every day. Some alternate practice and play. And some poor souls never play at all. I do not understand retirees who do not play golf, I thought taking up the game was mandatory.

In any event, I have been miserable for a few months because my game was suffering. I mean terribly. I even purchased a new club (a driver) to shake up the pattern and, hopefully, bring back the somewhat mediocre talent I thought I had. It didn't help. Neither did switching putters.

Switching putters is a common trick. Any dedicated golfer has several putters, most of which spend their days in the garage collecting dust and rust. They are purchased in hopes of bringing sanity and finesse to a game that needs both but mostly produces the antithesis of the former. Even the pros (maybe especially the pros) engage in this little bit of irrationality. Putting is merely the most obvious indicator of the quality of one's game. Regular putters of various design, long putters, belly putters, putters with large heads, putters with brass heads, face inserts of various materials, heel and toe weighting, how the shaft is shaped and where it connects to the putter head, and many more are all said to be "the answer" to the putting "problem."

And what is that problem? Just 50 percent of the game. You see, golf has something called "par" which is the number of strokes per round someone arbitrarily decided it should take you to complete 18 holes of golf. Half of these are putts. And the average golfer cannot putt to save his life. The average golfer starts shaking when faced with a putt 3 feet in length. Pros putt well. Pros putt magnificently. Pros sink almost every putt of 6 feet or less and an incredible percentage of those 10 feet or longer. If they miss a 20 foot putt, it still stops a foot or two from the hole.  Plus they do this on surfaces that more closely resemble felt stretched over slate than living grass that is mowed and watered daily.

But the other day, I managed to somehow sink both short and long putts on a regular basis. My record, for years, has been 4 birdies (one less than par) in a round. On Monday, I had 5.

There is a rule of thumb for the average golfers: A good round is always followed by a horrific one. But on the Friday before I had a good round (breaking 80 by 3 strokes) and did it again on Monday. And I didn't even buy a new putter.

I will now have another several months of poor play, obviously.