A Funny Thing About Golf…

Golf is a funny sport, it really is. I started writing a post Friday about the accuracy of the clubs in my bag, but I hadn’t quite finished it before my round yesterday at Riverbend in Kent. To give the 2 second version of it, it is all about how poorly I hit my long irons and how it affects my chances of breaking par on a round by round basis. You see, when I looked at a whole new set of information, I discovered a category called Mishits in the stats. When I looked at the numbers, I only hit about one out of five 3 irons well. Then out of those that I hit well, I only hit one out of six greens with that approach shot. So, when I step up to a 225 yard shot to the green and I pull out my 3 iron, I basically have a one in thirty chance of hitting that green. On the flip side, I have an 80% chance of ending up in trouble because I don’t hit the 3 iron very well. When you think about a 3.5% chance of gaining a shot vs. an 80% chance of not ending up in a good spot, you really have to start rethinking going after those flags.

That leads me to my thought of the day… There’s this funny thing about golf, no matter how good we get, something will always go wrong. During yesterday’s round, it was a bit of everything, but mostly it was a lack of control. I hit two 3 irons and one 5 iron, none of which found their targets. I hit one solid 6 iron, which still missed, but it was a great strike, so I won’t beat myself up over that one. After that, I hit a few 7/8 irons and a ton of lob wedges, way too many lob wedges.  It wasn’t a pretty round, but at the same time, as bad as it was, it wasn’t that bad. That’s the other funny thing about golf, no matter how bad we get, something always goes right. For example, a duffed chip followed by a brilliant putt still equals a par. A bad tee shot followed by a great recovery shot still leaves you a chance to save par.

This is what makes golf so different from any other sport. Only golf allows you to make a gigantic mistake and still recover. That drive that finds the tree line, but somehow manages to bounce back into the fairway. That chunky iron from the fairway that rolls out to the perfect spot to make a 50 yard up and down. That bladed chip that gets knocked down by the flag stick that you still laugh about as you tap in for a par. That’s a funny thing about golf… Even when things look terrible, and you’re hitting your 8th shot on to the green, when you make that 25 foot putt for a 9, you still made that 25 foot putt and that changes everything. After the round, nobody remembers the nine, but they certainly remember that 25 foot putt. It’s just like my horrible long iron performance yesterday, I won’t remember the missed 3 irons a few weeks from now, but I will remember the rainbow over the 4th green.