I nearly have, I can, I am, I fell, I’m back. A form of each of these phrases live inside my brain throughout an 18 hole round of golf. The only unique aspect of this Rolodex is how high or low the sun is when I utter each and every painstaking syllable.
I am not good at golf, I am not good at disappointment, I am not good at coping, but I am good at believing. I have had an insatiable optimism for my own abilities since I was playing at the the White River Golf Club, a bunker-less 9 hole track that was parked between the White River and Rte 100 in Rochester, Vermont.
Somehow, my self inflated belief has led to a yearly punishment of believing that I could golf in a manner that the State of Vermont would consider good.
So what is good? Subjective as it is, I certainly cannot avoid an attempt at illustrating my definition of “golfing good”.
For me, golfing good is defined by a number, aka a score, yes I admit, I rank myself.
This score equates to posting a qualifying round to earn a spot in the Vermont Amateur Golf Championship, an annual 3 day tournament where those that are “good” compete for the title of Vermont’s best.
A qualifying round is not unobtainable, you do not need to throw darts, drop turkeys or even hit 60% of your greens. The loose rule is that if you break 80, your in. 11 pars, 7 bogeys does it. Just don’t implode, don’t rage, don’t buckle, that is all.
For 27 years I have tried, for 27 years I have failed. I have failed early, failed late, failed by mistake and preemptively failed, all for the benefit of my rapidly deflating ego.
Failure is great, not at the time, but in retrospect. It is with this in mind that I shall resort to it repeatedly by creating a record.
My goals:
1) Play every golf course in the State of Vermont in one summer;
2) Record each and every shot.
I shall refuse gimmies, hit 3 from the t when needed and give myself no preferred lies…it shall serve as my season long reminder to myself just how far or, optimistically close, I can be to achieve a feat that no one, not even my mother really cares that I do.
Read what you want, this ride is for one.
Golfing the Greens 