Golf on a Hot Sunday
Greg made the comment at golf today that a long fairway drive I hit on the last hole was the best shot he had seen me make on this course (Altadena). Fair praise considering we had been playing here for a couple of years now. The shot went 200+ yards down the fairway and landed 100 yards from the green on the longest hole. Actually, I hit a similar shot a couple of holes previously on the long Hole 5 as well. And that earned me a par on that shot. In fact, the pic I posted is one of my landing my 4th shot on the green and within 10 feet from the hole. I would sink that putt for my par, the first hole I won today. And though I wax positively about those 2 fairway shots, it was really an up and down kind of day for me and I only ended up winning 2 holes at the end of it all. I did manage to have some nice shots, but not enough... particularly in the middle holes 5 and 6. Oh well... at least I got to enjoy the day, heat and all. It was so humid today I was soaked in sweat at the end of the 9 holes. The big question was: did I get a chance to apply all the knowledge and distinctions from the last few weeks? Clearly not, at least not consistently. When I hit the good shots, it was because I managed to slow myself down and got relaxed. When I get myself speeded up due to frustration or simply because I lacked sufficient focus was when I hit bad shots. I still need to learn to put the bad shots aside and recover quicker mentally. AND most notably, I am not making my putts. Still. All in all though it wasn't like I had a bad game, just still in progress and I have to remind myself that incremental progress is fine. And at least I have developed some confidence in my irons on the fairway. Hole 8 in fact was a missed par putt, but the first 2 shots were really good. An iron off the tee landing me 10 yards from the green and then a nice chip from there landing me 10 feet from the hole. Didn't make that 10-foot putt but still I remember the hole for how nicely I played it. And I'm not forgetting I had a par on the longest hole too. So like I said, an ok day that could have been better. Gotta keep working at it LOL.
I went home from golf and had it in my mind that I wasn't going to eat fast food for lunch today. No IN-N-Out, no BK, no Carl's Jr. Instead I went to Ralphs and picked myself up some nice tri-tip, which just happened to be on sale. And immediately fired up the barbecue at my apartment. Good thing I got there when i did, because I barely beat 2 couples using the barbecue as well. And so it was that those are my feet resting on the fountain while I was waiting for my steak to get done in the grill. And then I feasted on said steak for lunch. Much better than IN-N-Out right? Today, it was. And then I closed my eyes and let myself chill for about a half hour with my full stomach and all. I was pretty much done for the day. No need to exercise any more, by noon I had already gotten to 78000 steps for the week. No need to get too obsessive. Besides, walking around in the heat of Altadena gave me over 100 active minutes and about an hour of cardio minutes for the day already. I'm fine just chilling on my couch for the rest of the day. Which is really what happened actually. I know how good I am at just lazily letting an afternoon go by. And in between watching the Dodger game (another Dodger blowout), the Mavs upsetting the Clippers (I HOPE they win the series outright so the Clips don't meet the Lakers later on), some internal meditative sounds, and catching up on this journal, when I looked up it was 5 PM already! W-h-a-t? I simply told myself it was ok not to have to do anything, which meant it was ok not to have done anything at all! LOL. For once I don't have any pending things I need to do, not urgently anyway and really all I needed to think about was what to eat for dinner and finish my laundry. The dinner part was easy since I had already gone to Ralphs earlier. I made fettuccini bolognese. I had memories of me making Lisa and I spaghetti bolognese a lot of Sundays in her tiny studio apartment at Lindbrook before we moved to the penthouse. And just like the afternoon, before I knew it I was already drowsily nodding off on the couch. The weekend had come and gone. And that was ok. Turned out to be an uneventful summer weekend. Like everything in this time of the pandemic, the weekend was different but very much the same.
Greg made the comment at golf today that a long fairway drive I hit on the last hole was the best shot he had seen me make on this course (Altadena). Fair praise considering we had been playing here for a couple of years now. The shot went 200+ yards down the fairway and landed 100 yards from the green on the longest hole. Actually, I hit a similar shot a couple of holes previously on the long Hole 5 as well. And that earned me a par on that shot. In fact, the pic I posted is one of my landing my 4th shot on the green and within 10 feet from the hole. I would sink that putt for my par, the first hole I won today. And though I wax positively about those 2 fairway shots, it was really an up and down kind of day for me and I only ended up winning 2 holes at the end of it all. I did manage to have some nice shots, but not enough... particularly in the middle holes 5 and 6. Oh well... at least I got to enjoy the day, heat and all. It was so humid today I was soaked in sweat at the end of the 9 holes. The big question was: did I get a chance to apply all the knowledge and distinctions from the last few weeks? Clearly not, at least not consistently. When I hit the good shots, it was because I managed to slow myself down and got relaxed. When I get myself speeded up due to frustration or simply because I lacked sufficient focus was when I hit bad shots. I still need to learn to put the bad shots aside and recover quicker mentally. AND most notably, I am not making my putts. Still. All in all though it wasn't like I had a bad game, just still in progress and I have to remind myself that incremental progress is fine. And at least I have developed some confidence in my irons on the fairway. Hole 8 in fact was a missed par putt, but the first 2 shots were really good. An iron off the tee landing me 10 yards from the green and then a nice chip from there landing me 10 feet from the hole. Didn't make that 10-foot putt but still I remember the hole for how nicely I played it. And I'm not forgetting I had a par on the longest hole too. So like I said, an ok day that could have been better. Gotta keep working at it LOL.
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