Last year, I played a round with my bud Geoff and I remember hitting a routine bad shot. It wasn't a shank or anything disastrous in that nature, but I remember losing my cool and proceeded to slam my club into the ground. Geoff yelled at me and I remember regretting it the second I lifted the club over my head. I honestly can't remember that last time I got that angry. I told myself I would never behave like that again. I knew it wasn't going to be easy to remain calm when another situation like that occured, so I turned to the mental game reading material. I learned a lot and for the next 6 months I seemed to have my emotions in check...........until today.
Earlier in the day, I went to hit a bucket of balls at Ponkapoag's driving range. My swing felt pretty uncomfortable and my balls were doing things I've never seen before. I left there, came home, ate some dinner, and decided to head over to Faxon Park to hit some wedges. The grass is usually pretty high on this particular baseball field, so it's pretty much simulating any golf course's thick rough. Within the first 5 minutes I began shanking balls one after another. Since I started playing golf, I really haven't had the "shanks", but when you start hitting them consecutively, it's incredibly infuriating. After my fifth shank in a row, without stopping, I spun around and whipped my 7-iron blindly into air. In the .125 seconds it was flipping through the air, the lone telephone pole, impeded the club's progress. The club seemed to wrap around the pole for a split second and then bounced right back. The damage was done and my 7-iron paid the price for my child-like behavior. In retrospect, I regret every second of it but it was also very relieving. Luckily no one was around to see things unfold the way they did. I think I need to take a break from going to that park. Every time I go there my expectations are to high and I end up leaving pissed off because I expect to hit beauties out of thick rough. Rediculous. This game can really push you to your emotional limits and I need to be able to handle these scenarios better—because they can arise any day and won't be gone for good anytime soon.
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| Telephone pole (1-0) |
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| 7-Iron (0-1) |
