9/14/10 Bogey golf.....

[Dad-2-3]

Another windy day + unsolidly hit golf balls = 90 46/44 from the blue tees (6876 yards 71.9/127) for a 16.1 differential. 5 pars, 8 bogies, and 5 doubles with 32 putts. The only bright spot was my chipping. I saved par 3 times and bogey once with good chips close enough that I was unable to miss the putt.

One experience during this round has me rethinking my mental approach. On the par 3 second I had a long wait on a 3some in carts and they were waiting on the 4th tee to let me play through. I told them they may want to move their carts back because I was playing the blues and they were in the danger zone which is anywhere in front of my driver. They chuckled and moved their carts back behind me. I proceeded to hit my ball into the left rough some 50-80 yards past all three of these guys. The drive was nothing special about 240 yards with 40 yards of roll and ended up 150 yards from the flag, but these guys thought so. The "Holy $hit" and "Nice shot" became even louder when I put a hard 7i into a 25 mph wind into the greenside rough about 5 yards left of the surface. In no way would I consider these good shots and not worthy of such comments.

What has happened to me over the past year? A straight drive which rolled into the left rough 150 yards from the green would've been a stellar shot last year. If I was hitting that second shot last year into the wind I would've been hitting a 4 iron and praying to end up somewhere within 20 yards of the green. Now I'm hitting a hard 7 iron and I'm pissed at myself because I missed a green from 150 yards? When did this happen? I need to dwell more on my decent or good shots rather than getting down on myself for my bad ones. I know this is mental, but I've slipped into a bad habit. I'm a very intense person and as my wife says I'm more critical of myself than anyone could ever be of me and that has unfortunatley carried over into golf.

Relish in the good shots and let the bad ones go is going to be my approach from now on.