I may have figured out something this weekend. I am an irons guy, not a woods guy.
It has been quite some time since I've hit the golf course. This weekend, out of pure frustration and boredom, I went to the Dominguez driving range for the second time in a week. I'm going again on Friday.
I'm making it a new priority to pick up a used club once a month from Play It Again Sports. Why? Because I'm really, really bored. So last week I got a sand wedge. I kinda like the idea of a sand wedge; it's an urban club. Now that I have it in my trunk, along with a couple range balls, I get the idea that anywhere I park, I can drop a ball into some dirt or weeds and smack it. It gives me an interesting kind of outlaw feel to be in a relatively abandoned part of town and bang a ball a hundred yards and not care where it lands, not that I can hit 100 yards with a wedge, but you get the picture.
I can smack the ball fairly consistently with my 5 iron though. Nice and easy, I'm hitting it consistently 150 yards to the first bounce in about 8 degrees on either side of dead center about 80% of the time. Half the time it flies dead straight. The rest of the time I top the ball and it dribbles 30 yards. But that was just yesterday. The first time I got out there, after a 5 or 6 year hiatus, I was killing my right hand with the vibrations and fading the ball way right. Still, I know I'm pretty good with the irons. It's the drivers that make me crazy.
I've only had a few golf lessons and I've never been particularly impressed with who can hit the ball the furthest. Plus, when I started, I heard enough grumbling from the purists about Big Berthas and whatnot to shy away from all that. So I really never developed a good swing with the drivers. They just seem way too long and when I use them I never get any lift on the ball. So yesterday I heard for the first time, somebody mention an Iron swinger vs a Wood swinger. Iron guys swing down, wood guys swing out. Call me Iron Mike.
I'm rather susceptible to such criticism because when I was in college, I bought into the idea that within the swing sports you could only be good at one; the swing sports being racquetball, squash, tennis and golf, all of the bourgie sports we never played growing up in the hood. I chose raquetball because it was the most athletic of the bunch, and I became good enough to beat 'B' players on a good day. I also had an extraordinary amount of energy back in those days and could run most players down. The most shocking part of my physical fitness at my age is how sorry my aerobic energy is. I can still take the punishment and pain, it's just that I bonk way too early. It makes me feel very pathetic, and I'm conflicted about whether or not I should do something about it. On the one hand, I hate feeling pathetic. On the other hand, sports are not nearly as interesting to me as they used to be, I don't really care if I'm good or not - that is as long as I'm off the field. Get me near a competitive activity like soccer or clubbing and my mind is as sharp as ever, I am engaged in the strategy and tactics, and I'm plotting victory... vicariously, dammit. So my focus is to win in what I know I can win in, which is in the case of the swing sports, racquetball, but I haven't played in a coon's age. Besides, all those new huge racquets are so gay.
So now I'm turning towards golf, because it still allows me to smack something with ferocity and I don't need other people around to perfect my game. Plus it has a modicum of brass rail appeal. I expect to find people worth talking to on courses. Still, I'm not going to catch the fever. My intention is to have a very strong urban game. I'll be happy in the traps and rough. I'll be good in the short game and leave the driving to somebody else.
BTW, I'm also thinking about shooting again.
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