Things begin anew

Thank you all for the great support after my last post.  That was a trying little spell there and I’m glad it’s over.  I actually felt almost 100 percent better by the next day and am now completely back in my groove of learning.  There are hard times and back tracks along the way, but the important thing is to always work through them knowing that these things will pass.

The last few days have been great.  I haven’t necessarily shot better or had any big breakthroughs, but my morale changed and it has been fun and enriching to get back out to the course.  I didn’t even need a day off, which is always a plus.

Last Thursday I went and saw a chiropractor for the first time in 17 years.  My knee and lower back had been nagging me for a while and I had played with a chiropractor about a year ago who was a great guy, so I decided to visit him and see if there was anything majorly out of whack that he could adjust.  There was..  Not too major, but since golf is such a one-sided sport (I’m a lefty so spend most of my time working the right side of my body for the swing) it makes sense that the body’s alignment can be thrown off.  He noticed that my hamstrings were overly tight and that I had a rib bulging out on the left side of my back.  The right hamstring was much tighter and that had caused my hip to be pulled up some, in turn shortening the length of my right leg slightly which was what was adding more pressure on my left knee.  This is why my left knee was not working right..  It had been hurting for a couple of weeks and in the mornings I couldn’t put pressure on it going down stairs.

Seth (his clinic is http://www.sylvanchiropractic.com/ in the Sylvan Hills area) pulled and popped things and wrapped my knee with some tape and sent me on my way with a couple stretching exercises.  It was good to see him and I’ve felt looser and pain free since the visit.

The two days after that I played a lot of golf, but I’m pretty sure we all knew that  I went out to East Moreland and hit 18 yesterday morning and then teed up 18 at Columbia Edgewater in the afternoon where I played with a prospective member and the GM Bryan Fisher.  Bryan has been playing golf for about 18 years and had never aced a hole.  We had been talking about that fact early in the round then low-and-behold he holed out the par 3 11th hole!  It was awesome.  I haven’t played a round with someone who got an ace and it was such a surreal moment.  We couldn’t see the cup from the tee box, but all knew that it was a great shot.  Walking up, his ball wasn’t on the green but there was a chance it could have gone over the back edge.  He went up to check and it was in the cup!  Here’s a shot of him getting his ball back:

What an experience!

We were playing some match play and I was down a couple holes at that point.  From then on, though, it was game on for Bryan and he couldn’t miss.  He ended up beating me by four holes with three remaining.  If you have to lose a hole, losing it to a 1 is the way to go.  It was fun to write that on the scorecard, too.

Today, I played Royal Oaks up in Vancouver, Washington with Bryan Asbury, a member who invited me up.  Before the round I got a cup of coffee and saw that Tiger Woods holds the official course record.  He shot a 63 from the tips back in the late 90s and after playing that course I can get a much better feel for how good of a player he is/was.  I played pretty well, hitting the ball decent except for about 4 3-hybrid shots which just were not doing what I wanted.  I didn’t have any blow-up holes, but still shot an 86.  It’s a tight course with huge trees that seem to be magnets for the ball, so I was punching out a few too many times making easy bogeys.  Shot a 45-41 without a birdie and a couple unfortunate 3-putts on the quick and hard sloping greens.  Still, I felt like I played very well and am excited about shooting mid-80s on this course the first time I gave it a go.

What a great world.  Thank you all again for the wonderful support last week.  It meant the world to me.