Why I Love Golfing

ere's the deal: I love golfing. Part of it is because I'm a scrawny, brown kid playing all the public courses (i.e. not the stereotypical golfer). Part of it is because it's a sport you can never master, even as you grow old with it.

Most golfers can relate to this statement: I will, to a fault, rearrange my entire schedule to fit more golf into it. At the time of writing this (Summer 2020), my excuse for doing so is that because COVID is still rampant, and golfing is about the only responsible social thing I can do.

As early as 10 years old, I knew I loved the feeling of hitting a golf ball. Every golfer knows the feeling: nothing. When you hit a perfect shot, you almost don't feel anything. It's just a smooth swing of the club. That feeling is addicting. However, it wasn't until the summer of 2015 that I finally picked up a proper set of clubs and started golfing. I would go to the range with my other friends who had inherited an old set of clubs from their distant uncle or something like that. We would get out there and swing as hard as we possibly could. We were hitting the balls pretty damn far, but we didn't realize how devastating the slices would be on an actual course because none of us had ever been on an actual course before.

Every golfer knows the feeling: nothing. When you hit a perfect shot, you almost don't feel anything. It's just a smooth swing of the club. That feeling is addicting.

I shot +27 the first time I ever played 9 holes (at Wilson Road Golf Course, a Columbus, Ohio 9-hole executive course), and I shot +40 the first time I ever played a full 18 (at the Airport Golf Course, another Columbus municipal course). Despite shooting objectively horrendous scores, I loved every minute of it. I've heard golf described as the closest game to life. You experience every emotion in a span of two to four hours. Excitement, frustration, confidence, defeat, surprise, anger, and everything in between. I set my sights on being able to play bogey golf within the next few years.

I don't remember how long it took, but I can tell you that 5 years later, I'm shooting +12 on average when playing 18 holes. I've kept a lot of the scorecards over the years in a Google Photos album, and it's amazing to see the progress. Summer of 2019 was when I demolished that +27 at Wilson Road by shooting an Even par there. Summer of 2020 was when I had my best round ever, shooting just +4 on a full 18 holes at Rolling Meadows in Marysville, Ohio.

Golf teaches me to remain patient and to be intentional. But, more than anything else, golf helps me to clear my mind. I always put my phone away for the duration of the round which helps me to clear my head of anything else going on in my life. I am focused on nothing else except for how I can hit my next shot better than the last. It's like meditation for me, and because of that, I golf often.

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