7 Powers

Longtime readers will recall that I took almost 6 months off from golf at the beginning of this year; since returning in May/June, I’ve had a pretty great golf season, shaving off about 1 stroke per handicap revision, for a total of 2 strokes a month. My goal for the year was to make it to a 12 index this year.

As of today, I’m a 12.6 index. 4 strokes better than last years winter index. This year’s goal is well within my grasp, but in typical Powers fashion – I want to know whats next.  I thoroughly understand the plateau dilemma, and I don’t want to find myself hanging out at any given handicap index due to a lack of relevant goals, so…

I made it to the mens club championship semi-finals this year. I worked hard to get out of the flight where I’ve been stuck,  but alas… I was about .2 above the flight line. I found myself the #2 seed in the 4th flight. This meant I was giving strokes to a lot of my competitors – which was exactly what I was trying to avoid by moving up to the next flight – which typically has a pretty tight grouping of players, making the impact of handicap strokes negligible, or at least, less of an impact on the outcome of the match.

… In trying to figure out what my next goals should be, I think I may have hit on it. I want to play in the championship flight of the mens club championship next year. I figure if I can get to about an 8 handicap, I won’t completely embarrass myself, but I am in love with the thought of leapfrogging from the bottom flight to the Championship flight in one year. Awesome goal. Lets go get it.

Mid-July 2011. As I write this, it is 4:45am, I’m watching the final round coverage of The Open Championship on ESPN, I’ve been up for about an hour. I awoke to a child screaming, night terrors or something I suppose, thats the rub, it wasn’t any of my kids. You’re really defying the odds there, little guy. He’s quieted down by now, but I sure feel for his parents. Night terrors suck.

So an update on my Golfweek Amateur Tour career. Ehh. It was fun, but incredibly slow, in fact, on 14, the Head pro comes by our group, says “This is your first and final warning, you’re out of position.”  We played the round in about 5 hours. I finished middle of the pack, after a great 42 on the front 9. After a poor bunker shot on 10, I carded my first double of the day, then followed that by fanning my second shot on the first par-5 of the back, it missed the fairway left, but we had a good sense of where it was. We drove right to it, I looked down, saw it was a ProV1, put a good swing to get it back in play, and drove down to the 100yard marker and addressed the ball for my 4th, when I  realized that it was’t my ball. What? 2 stroke penalty. +4 in two holes, I tried to fight my way back from there, but I couldn’t really get it going from there… It was an okay vibe, but was a bit different in that I was the old man of the group; by a decade.

We rejoined the club last month, and the second day back, I was asked to fill-in and help out in the upcoming Interclub match. Okay. The highlight from that event is that for the first time in my playing career, I was 4 down through 12, but came back to halve the match. That was a pretty good result for me, staying present in the match, gutting it out. Some good takeaways.

More recently, the Mens stroke play was held last weekend. I didn’t play well on Saturday, just couldn’t get anything going, and two triple bogeys put me at the back of the pack, but I went out on Sunday and turned in a decent round to finish in the middle of the pack, leapfrogging past half the field on Sunday. There’s some good stuff for me to take away from that performance, notably, no 4 putts, nothing above an 8. Given that my first time ever playing in the stroke play, I posted 12 on a par 4 with 3 penalties, having only one “8″ over the two days feels like progress.

Now for the big news. I am playing in the Ranch Shootout – a 3 day 2-man match play tournament against 5 other teams in your flight with the flight winners advancing to the Finals – a horserace format, over 7 holes to crown the championship team.  There are no expectations for this event, Lori and I have watched the finals for the past two years – galleries are encouraged, so you’ll see 50 or 60 carts chasing around the course, ringing the greens and watching the play.

I filled-in during the final week of the Wednesday evening Mens league last week, and was paired with an 11 handicap, against a 3 and a +1. We teed off of #1 as the first group off. Standing there on the tee-box, after two good tee-shots by our competitors, with 7 other players watching… Wow. I limped off the box, making a joke about first tee jitters being the second most common fear behind public speaking, to which my partner says to me “Oh, thats not pressure, pressure is the first tee-box in the Shootout Finals…

I did bogey the hole, but it took me to the fairway on 3 to finally settle enough to hit a golf shot.

In other news, I will be teaching August 7th, and am thinking I’ll probably finally do the James vs. Paul smackdown. It might be a two-week class, but with the baby due about the same time, I’d better play that by ear.

Lori and I have been talking quite a bit lately about rejoining the club. The reasoning goes like this:

I am going to golf. Period. It is “what I do” it is part of who I am, and while I haven’t yet met all my goals, I sure enjoy the journey.

The club made it very convenient for me to play. Thats about it, convenient. Playing 18 in < 3 hours is really, really convenient. Being able to take our own cart to the club, and not even have to start the truck… convenient.

But the real benefit of the club isn’t the convenience, it is that Lori and the kids get to use it too…  In the three weeks that I’ve been back playing golf, I’ve already spent the monthly dues on public courses, and tourneys, and the kids haven’t seen any benefit at all. Without seeming too ridiculous, that feels selfish.

So that is what it comes down to, Lori and the kids get to swim, play tennis, play golf, hang out, whatever. Sure, I too get to golf, but remember, I was going to golf anyway.

I suppose the next thing I write should be “Stay Tuned.”

Consider it done.

ps: Been up since 1:30 am. Now its 5:30 and I’m drinking coffee. Good times.

Funny, now I’ve broken 100, and it almost felt empty, I knew I had let that 89 slip away, and now the race was on to break 90. My observation is that once you’ve broken the goal once, subsequent repeats of the feat carry little value, its all about the next goal. Break 90.

So by now we’re into 2008. We’ve added a boy to the clan, we’re expecting our fourth at the end of June, and I get a job offer in Colorado. Okay, lets do that.

We joined a private golf club right after moving, and the increased frequency of play, coupled with the fantastic teaching of the head pro kept me focused on my goal. My first lesson started like this: Him: whats your handicap? Me: 21. Him: I think we can make you a single digit in about a year. Me: Sign me up.

Stupid expectations. Remind me to talk more about mental toughness.

The last year in California, I had begun playing in men’s league play, and the club had more opportunities to play competitively – in fact, for me, it was more emphasis on competition, and achieving success on the course, and this competitive approach really allowed me to see the mental impact on the game of golf. As I played more, what emerged is that my lack of competitive sports growing up had left me in a hole. Behind the 8-ball. Upside down. A master of the choke.

Couple that with my expectations – I should be able to break 90, I should be a single handicap, I can play this game. One of the assistant pro’s at the club told me very diplomatically – “You’re quite cerebral” Um, I think he meant I’m a head case.

August 12, 2009. I finally broke 90 – shot an 87 at the Ranch. Excellent.

Now for the next goal – win a trophy. It’s a much more difficult goal than just saying “break 70″ since now I am hoping to get the better of an opponent, or a flight. But that was the stated goal.  I started playing in the Colorado Golf Association Interclub Match play competition for the Ranch, and although I lost more matches than I won, at the end of the season (2010), our team prevailed against Indian Tree to win… a trophy.

I suppose that qualifies, although it really wasn’t the spirit of my goal, technically, I have now been part of the team that won a trophy. Fine.

We left the club at the end of 2010, after performing a budget analysis and figuring out how much money we had spent over the prior 12 months at the club. Let’s just say, it was a large number. A. LARGE. NUMBER.

But now what? I was taking two classes at seminary, so golf was very much on the back burner, but sure enough May comes, the semester ends, and here comes my golf jones, emphatically.

While browsing the web for tournaments to play in, I heard about the Golfweek Amateur Tour, so I checked into it, and signed up. I’ve missed the first few months, but my first tournament will be June 25, at Riverdale Dunes – a wonderful Pete Dye course.

Awesome, something to play for.

Stay tuned for results.

Of course, time passed. By the early 2000′s, I was playing weekly with friends, but I was still awful. I was in the woods so often, it’s a wonder I am not an arborist.  I had a fairly smooth swing, but an awful slice.

So this brings us to 2005. I’ve now been playing pretty avidly for quite awhile, and still haven’t done better than 101 for 18 holes. This sucks. I’m now in my mid-30′s and I’m fighting this internal conflict. I am awful at this game – but my gut still says I can play this game. Empirical evidence versus my gut (read: faith).

I remember the conversation I had with Lori – my wife – in the living room while watching a PGA tournament on TV – did I mention avid?  ”Look, I’m so bad, I have to do something. The only thing worse than how bad I play, would be to not play at all. And if thats the case – why not try playing left-handed (remember, I’m a lefty). I mean – how bad could I be? Suck is suck, and I already suck.”

Of course, by this point, we’ve got two little girls, money is tight – and I’m thinking – “hey, Golfsmith has a 90 day playability guarantee – no risk. I can buy a left handed wedge, and if it doesn’t work out. I can just return it.” Wow, what a cheapskate.

So I buy a Vokey sand wedge, and make my way to the local range. That first day – that was pretty rough, but hey – what did I expect. The second day, it was better, and by the end of the third day, I was making better contact with the ball than I had ever made. Ever.

But I wasn’t yet satisfied – this wasn’t about contact. this is about scoring. I gave myself exactly one year to break 100. And if I couldn’t do it. I was quitting the game. No kidding. So this was Fathers Day of 2006, and my wife and daughters – bless them – presented me with a shiny new set of Mizuno MX-23 irons, a Ping G-5 driver and an Odyssey putter for Fathers Day.  Ebay got the old set of Ping irons, and it was off to the races.

I started playing a couple times a week, walking a little executive course near the house after work, and playing 18 on a regulation course most weekends, seeing real progress, but still – nothing below 100. Eventually, I setup the tee-time with the wife. June 18, 2007, at Blue Rock Springs, up in Vallejo, one of our favorite courses.

The round started great, with a birdie! But no time to celebrate, I had work to do. I buckled down and played my round.

Right up until the 17th tee-box. I looked at the scorecard, and started adding things up… Oh man – a bogey, bogey finish will result in an 89.

I step up, smoke my drive…right through the dogleg, through the fairway, about 40 yards too long, and way out of position. Try to chip it back into play, and end up in the rough, dribble my third shot 70 yards to end up by the water, greenside… One fairly routine shank, and that ball is wet. Drop, chip up, putt out. Snowman. 8.  One hole to go.

Tee-box on 18. Righteous pull to the middle of the fairway. The First fairway. oops. Hit a 7 iron over the trees back into play — wait, over the trees, over my fairway, into the rough left of the green. 4 chips to find the green, 2 putts for another Quad.. Sheesh. That’s a 96 boys. That breaks 100.

Goal met. (note to self, work on mental toughness).

I generally use this blog for occasional ramblings about my spiritual journey, discussing faith, theology or whatever… But ya know – my twitter name is PreachAndPutt, so today I’m going to talk about the latter half of my nick.

First, a bit of backstory is in order. Dad was a great athlete, and I am confident that he figured I would follow in his footsteps, so when I showed very little (read: none) aptitude for organized sports – baseball, basketball, it was a source of frustration for him. He was busy working, trying to provide and get his business established, so he just didn’t have the time to give me the attention that I probably required to be even marginally successful at sports, so there we were. Stuck.

Around 12 or 13, I somehow got turned on to golf, and badgered Mom to take me to the local 9-hole muni a couple times a week with various neighborhood friends, to hack my way around the course. Very very early in my golfing career, I felt a gutteral, instinctive truth that was unique, comfortable and, as it would turn out, very influential in my life. “I can play this game.”  Now this was the mid-70′s and while Phil Mickelson’s dad had allowed the boy to play as a lefty, my Dad started me playing right handed – same way I batted. I played for the summer, but I didn’t get much support at that point – Dad probably figured I was a bit of a lost cause, and a couple years later, Dad passed.

I guess I played a few more times as a teen, played a bit in my early 20′s but really, didn’t have much desire (read: funding) to play the game with any regularity, and really, I wasn’t all that good anyway. Things went along like this until 1995, when I found myself in South Carolina to serve as best man in my best-friends wedding. He had planned 18 holes for all the guys in the wedding so we had two foursomes playing that day – I think we were playing a course in Lamar called Governors Run, and I holed out from about 130 yards and behind a hill. Now, there is no question that it was a lucky shot, but whatever. I was officially bit by the golf bug.

Stay tuned. It gets better.

What a week.

Let’s see. one week ago today, my 6 year old jammed a pencil up her nose causing much freaking out by all. Blunt edge first, thankfully. First time I’ve ever had one of my kids bleed like that … gallons … of peroxide were required to clean it all up.

Then Saturday night our kid count bounced from 4 to 6 with the addition of another 6 year old and a 10 year old boy. Good friends had to go to Chicago for a medical consultation thingy, so we agreed to keep the short people while they were gone – for a week.

Okay, so Sunday afternoon – we had friends over for after church dinner – no biggie, we had Old Chicago pizza. That was much fun and they headed out around 4:00. We got everyone to bed and called it a day. Easy peasy, though a bit emotionally draining for a weekend.

Monday – didn’t sleep well – up at 4:30. half day at work, then off to the first day of seminary. Intro New Testament II (Acts – Rev) with Dr. Veteto, followed by dinner with a bunch of the guys at Qdoba, followed by Preaching/Communication with Dr. Shaddix.

Ummm. Looks like about 15-20 hours of work a week this semester. Oh my. I was a bit freaked out by that, and when I got home at 10:15, I was a bit scared of it all. My day job is pretty intense right now, and getting anything less than a B will hurt my chances at petitioning for the Masters program (I’m currently in the diploma program), so I need to be able to knock it out of the park every week.

Tuesday was fairly uneventful, and I thought I might be making up a little ground, but Tuesday night I slept awful again, up from 2:30 until almost 5:00am. Fell back asleep and awoke at 7:00 to a text from a friend whom I was supposed to be meeting for coffee and prayer at 7:00 at the local starbucks – ARGH!  Jumped into the truck, met with him, then off to work – walked in to a hot LZ – the Internet was hosed, so now I’m on the phone with our provider all morning, alternately playing nice guy and angry customer, finally got them fix their configuration issue around 1:00pm and as traffic began to flow again, I started to come down from my adrenaline rush. By the time I got home I was a zombie. Tons of reading to do, and I can’t get my eyes to work. I stared at my books for awhile before going in and vegging in the chair with the mystical powers. A brief 15 minute nap had me slightly refreshed but by 9:15 when the family got home from church/awanas, I was heading for the bed.  The balance of the week was fairly uneventful, and I finally got a few nights of good sleep before Saturday, when we had a girl scouts snow day in the mountains. 90 minute drive and on arriving – the campground was covered in … dirt. No sledding. Ugh.

When people ask why I choose to start my week on Sundays, its because I can’t take anymore of this week. I’m looking forward to a new one, starting first thing in the morning.

I know I’ve been pretty lax about posting here lately. Saying I’ve been busy is like claiming that oxygen got in the way of my breathing, so I won’t go there. Let’s just say I’m active behind the scenes.

I start out pretty shaky here, the audio system wasn’t working, and with 60 seconds before I was to begin my sermon, the sound people whispered in my ear that I might not have my video clip. Want to see a new Pastor freak out? Take away his core prop.

Anyway, the video finally came through, and you’ll notice I settle down quite a bit after that.

Enjoy the sermon.

~duane