So annoying.

I play a good bit of walk-on golf and with that  comes a variety of playing partners.  Most of the time (let’s say 90 percent) you get to meet an interesting and personable person.  Occasionally, though, the luck of the draw is against you and you’re stuck playing 18 with a total ass-clown.

So is life.  When this happens during a practice round you are not married to this partner and are free to step off of the course at any point, although I’m pretty sure they don’t do rain-checks for bad attitudes..  It’s a free world and you can do as you choose.  However, in a tournament setting there is only so much you can do and sometimes you have to suck it up, remain in your zone and ignore whatever the other person is doing/saying.

I got a chance to practice this over the past week.  To avoid pointing fingers, I’ll refrain from a specific date or course, but it happened and was actually a great learning experience.  At first, all was well.  It wasn’t until the second or third hole and the second or third duffed shot that things turned south.  The guy I was playing with had a temper and would explode when things didn’t go his way. Once he was set off, he pretty much ignored the fact that three other people were hitting the ball and would yell and hit things during other people’s putts and drives.  It was a bit unnerving and when it started I had a feeling that I should walk off, especially after I miss-hit a couple shots.  But, then I realized that this was a perfect chance to practice with distractions.

I’ve practiced with all types of noises and lights and conditions to try and distract me, but never with an explosively unpredictable playing partner.  So, instead of whining about it in my own head and using it as an excuse for shooting a 90+ I hunkered down and shot one of the best rounds in my young career.

At the end of the day I thanked the man for being a ridiculous partner and for teaching me how to ignore rudeness on the course.  He just said: “that was fun, we should do it again.”  Honestly, I’m surprised the guy would ever want to golf again, but I’m sure he goes out there once a week and acts the same way somewhere around Portland.

If there’s something to learn then it’s worth doing.  It wasn’t a great experience, but next time this happens might be during a tournament and I’m one step closer to knowing how to maintain control of my own focus.

On a different subject, the GHIN refreshed the handicaps this past Wednesday and I got my first official number.  I’m starting off as a 12.4, which is lower than I thought it would be, but then I read a bit about the handicap and it’s more of a judge of your potential than your averages, so that is understandable.

Since then, I have played three 18-hole par 72 rounds from the white tees and shot 86, 86, 84.  I hope to keep this up with some more consistency in the 3-hybrid and sometime over the next six weeks break into the 70s.  But, I’m not in a hurry to do that because it’s much more important to work on swing mechanics than worry about score; it’s just good to keep goals and a round in the 70s by mid-November is my current scoring goal.

If anyone is interested, it’s publicly viewable to see the rounds I record.  go to ghin.com and under handicap lookup plug in Oregon for the state and McLaughlin for last name, I’m the Dan McLaughlin who’s home course is Columbia Edgewater.

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