Fore!

Had my first golf lesson today. Wow...it's pretty intense, with all the weird positions you have to get yourself used to. But I did okay. One of my nephews is a very good golfer. John Robert the 14 year old. I don't know what his handicap is, but he is good enough to use the really expensive balls and be able to tell a difference in how he hits with them...and he also doesn't lose them much in hazards. He won his age group in the first big tournament he entered last year. And he practices several times a week, which is one reason he is so darn good.

I can see that this golf thing takes lots of practice...and could become very addictive. Corey struggles quite a bit with it. It hurts his back and he doesn't have good flexibility for the swinging positions. I think he's also going to have to make it a priority and practice. He had his first lesson last week and hasn't practiced at all. :( He works such late hours sometimes that practicing golf is not going to be much of a priority.

But I was pretty happy with today. We did putting, chipping, and pitching. The driving range was closed from all that rain we had the other day. I've played golf twice in my life. Once about 15 years ago. Once about 8-9 years ago. I was roped into completing foursomes in company scramble tournaments. I was obviously the D player...the first time I played, I had only been with the company about two weeks when one of the directors who hired me showed up at my cube. He was the organizer of the company golf tournament and wanted to know if I played golf. "Nope. Never have." He wanted me to play anyway, as they needed one more player to round out the teams of four. "Um, I don't think you get it...I've never held a golf club except for putt putt!" He didn't care. he just needed a warm body. :D He put me on his team, loaned me his wife's clubs to use, and 15 minutes before we started, he taught me how to hold a club. I actually did okay in that tourney. I was about as good at driving as the C player, also a woman. I couldn't hit it far, but I could hit it fairly straight and right down the fairway. My short game left a lot to be desired, but we didn't have to use too many of my shots. In a scramble, you all hit the ball, then use the best shot, but you do have to use shots from each player and not just shots from your A and B players.

My second game was another scramble. When I worked at GTE, we used to work some crazy hours at quater end. Worked until 4 am once. So after one really hard reporting period, my manager took us all out to play golf on a Tuesday. Another scramble. Three teams of four. We had a great time and I even hit a shot from the tee up onto the green on a par 3 hole. Since then, I've joked to Corey that I am a natural golfer, LOL!

So hopefully Corey will want to keep playing and his back won't be too much of a problem. If I hadn't started working out and strengthening my abs and back, my back would hurt a lot more today than it does (and yes, it hurts!) This would be something fun for us to do together outside, even if it does involve me getting up at ridiculous hours to avoid the summer heat. :D