Bizarre offseason Improvement?

[Travtex]

I'm half-thinking I should take off more often.

Anyway, as I'm sure nobody remembers, I only picked up the game about six or seven months ago... Last summer sometime. Thanks to the combination of daylight savings time and my night shift schedule, I've ended up taking the last 6-8 weeks off the game. Not that I mind, this last bout of winter weather has had me in 'No way in hell am I going out there' gear.

So, I had that rare combination of a day off and decent weather yesterday... coupled with my friend calling me and waking me up around noonish (I explained to him that this was much like as if I had called him at two in the morning enthusing, "Dude!! Let's go play GOLF!")... ended up on the course. Only got about eleven holes in before it got dark.

Fully expected to suck out loud and sideways. Confirmed this expectation hitting a few balls at the range (I clanged one off the toe with my driver and damn near killed myself as it went directly 90 degrees out and hit the little metal fence/divider and zipped back at my face). I hadn't bothered with establishing a handicap, yet, as I tended to shoot well above and beyond anything even recordable. Estimating my handicap has been up to this point, "How high do the numbers go?"

After I went back and looked at the front 9... I shot a 48. At a 121 slope, 72.7 rating course, not an exec. I don't even know how that happened, heh. Wasn't pretty, of course. One par, five bogeys, two doubles, and a triple (kersplash). Had to do the math a few times when I realized I was sitting at +12 for 9.

Wasn't -pretty- for the most part -- I hit a ton of burners... didn't even know the ball could roll 180 yards, haha -- but it's obviously a step in the right direction.

I'm probably going to have nightmares about my par for weeks. Par 3, 175-some yards that I stuck at three feet. Then went and lipped out the birdie putt. Absofrigginlutely pathetic, har. Between that shot and uncorking a drive in the 290 range (And no, I wouldn't imagine thinking that I "average" 290, hah. More accurate estimate of my average drives would be in the 230-240 range... I have some shots that definitely enhanced my golf addiction, had it been fading a bit over the offseason.

Don't quite understand how NOT practicing brought on that sort of improvement, but not really complaining.

[James_Black]

Sometimes happens to me as well.
Only problem is it can also go the other way and I play shit and lose a dozen golf balls!

Guess you were just relaxed and didn't care what score you got and that's why you played well since there was no pressure.

[Quinn07]

Sometimes golf is easy when you play with no expectations.