Remember to love what you love

I love this.  I love training, practicing, trying my hardest to get better in a single pursuit.  I love standing in the pouring rain putting balls after balls, I love getting mud in my face when I pitch a ball out of the muck.  I love when the sun decides to come out after five months of rain and you know that the amazing Portland summer is right around the corner.  I love having a sore back, sore legs, sore arms and a car full of gear.  I love putting on my golfing clothes in the morning and telling myself I’m getting ready for battle.  I love how far I’ve come and how much further I have to go.

I don’t mean to be cheesy with that paragraph above, but some days it’s hard not to be that excited and today was one of those days.  And, for no real reason, it was just a day where I remembered why I do what I do and how I couldn’t have it any other way.  Nobody knows where this is going or where my skill set will be in four years time, but the constant challenge of getting there is more fulfilling than I could have ever imagined.  It’s only going to get better.

Yesterday, I went and saw a friend and acupuncturist Kevin Nakaji for some work on my lower back.  It was amazing to have him do his thing and I would recommend it to anyone interested in Chinese medicine or acupuncture.  Along with the needles, he “cupped” my back.  Basically, he applied suction cups to it for about 15 minutes as a form of message, but instead of pressing on the muscles, the cups pull on them.  It felt great.  Afterwords, my back looked like I had been making love to an octopus, though:

I get a kick out of that image.

I also picked up a new putter while I was out and about, care of Christopher via Nike.  It’s a few seasons old and one with no insert.  The plan is to see if it allows for better distance control over the coming month.  Here are the two together:

The top one is the new one and as you can see, my current putter (bottom one, of course) has the black lines, which are from a plastic insert that runs through the middle of the putter.  It’s hard to say what will happen, but since I’ve only ever had one putter it will be good to give a different styled one a shot.  I have been questioning my current putter for some time and want to try something new.

However, the greens out at Heron are sanded right now:

They are actually getting a lot better, the greens that is, and by the weekend should be rolling like the summer.  It’s a bit hard to say from my experience today whether the new putter is an instant smash, but I did play 27 holes and only 3-putted once.  Also sank a couple 15-footers, so all is well.  I like the feel of it and that says a lot.

One last image.  It was a hard day to leave the course.  Finally, for the first time in March, hit 60 degrees.  In fact, if it had not hit 60 today, it was going to be the first time since 1940 that it did not make that mark in Portland, OR.  Just my luck!

Thanks for reading!