Balls Magazine Volume 16 and Saturday Night Open Thread

As you may have noticed, I have been lax in publishing new episodes of Balls Magazine. That’s not to say that I haven’t been playing golf. I have. I’ve just been playing really shitty golf. To wit, here are my results from my last three rounds:

• 107 at Santa Anita Golf Course
• 113 in my club’s May tournament
• 116 in yesterday’s round in Cypress

Not exactly going on the right direction, am I?

The weird thing is that I that I don’t think I’m really playing that badly. For the most part, I’m making good contact and the ball is going straight. Well, except for yesterday when the ball was going off the tee to the right for some reason. It started during my warmup at the range and it never stopped.

Differential-wise, the Santa Anita round was actually pretty good. When I played it, I felt I could have easily saved about six or seven shots by avoiding stupid mistakes and bad decisions.

At the club tournament, that number grew to 10.

I think I have realized that I need to take my time more. I like to be a fast player and play “ready golf”, which means you hit the ball as soon as you can to stay on pace with the group ahead of you.

However, I’m rushing through the shots. I’m not thinking about what I want to do and where I want to go with my next shot.

I’ve realized that golf is a lot like billiards/pool. You can work on technique so the ball goes exactly where you want it to go. However, if you want to be really good at the game, you need to think about setting up the next shot after your initial shot.

I have a lot of opportunities to get better quickly. Next weekend, I have a round with an ex-co-worker in Palm Springs on Saturday and a round with co-workers on Sunday in preparation for a Company tournament in June. The following weekend (both Saturday and Sunday) is the Club Championship tournament.

So, there will be plenty more of my misadventures to share with y’all. Let’s hope I don’t embarrass myself too much.

PROS

I am getting more practice and recognizing my mistakes so I can avoid them in the future.

I’m playing different courses, which is a lot of fun and helps improve my game.

I’m getting used to playing with random strangers.

CONS

The scoring is going in the wrong direction.

I have no idea why I’m developing a slice off the tee. I must fix that ASAP.

OVERALL RATING:

To make up for my shitty play, Rikki will now present the next exciting chapter in the golf cart girl story!

See you next time.