Outdoor and Sports Blog

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The weather here hasn’t been too cooperative when people are trying to scuttle out of their homes to catch a baseball game or participate in some other outdoor sport.

But on Monday, I got extremely excited by the reminder of one thing as I took a phone call from Kent McComb of Bountiful Ridge Golf Course.

It’s golf season!

Finally! That golf bag that’s been sitting in the corner of my living room for the past few months can get some fresh air and shuffle around my back for 18 holes of good fun.

Or torture, depending on how well my round goes.

And I’m not counting the one time I took it out to go check out an iGolf place near where I live either.

I’m talking about taking the bag, cleaning the dust off of it, brushing out every single groove in my TaylorMade clubs (excluding my new 56-degree wedge, which I got for an anniversary gift and haven’t used yet), throwing the bag in the back of my truck and hitting the road for another challenging year of breaking 100.

I’ve done it before, but my goals are typically to have more rounds in the 90s than the year before.

So far it’s working. Last year I had four rounds in the 90s, including a tie for my lifetime low of 93 in my second or third to last round of the year.

The year before I had three, then two and so on. So this year the goal is at least five rounds under triple digits.

The best thing about the game of golf is there is always a chance to get better.

When I first took it up my freshman year of college I couldn’t keep the ball on the driving range. Now, more than 10 years later, I can say the ball doesn’t stay on the range because I hit it too far (although hitting it straight is still an issue, as you can see from my goal).

I also, through some miracle, have a hole-in-one, which my brother-in-law to this day attests that I didn’t see go in the hole.

I SAW IT GO IN!

But back to the improving part. I suppose in any sport you participate in you get better at as long as you keep playing on some level.

I had been bowling since as far back as I could remember and still have some of the milestones in my head. First 200-game by age 12 (with an alley ball, no less), first 600-series by 16, a 298 game in high school sometime and my first 700 series while in a league with my high-school buddy.

Along with his mom and my dad, of course.

Funny thing is, I have a hole-in-one in golf and no 300 game in bowling, even though I’ve been bowling nearly twice as long as I’ve been golfing.

I was even on the Weber State bowling team and, still, no 300 to this day…sigh.

But the most important thing is that it’s golf season, and I want to go out as soon as I possibly can and hit up as many courses as possible this year in my quest to break 100 at least a handful of times.

It may help to have an instructor for that, but with their rates and my finances I don’t think that could work out too well.

But, at any rate, goals are goals no matter how lofty they seem for some. If I broke 100 with little instruction whatsoever, what’s to say that I can’t break it more often the same way?

Maybe I’ll even break 90 this year…hmmm…

No. That’s a bit of stretch. One goal at a time is good for now.

On that note, I’ll see you at the clubhouse.

And if you happen to see me out there on the course, be sure to have a hard hat on…just in case.