“Know When To Fold ‘Em”

Today the theme song for my golf round needed to be the “Gambler” by Kenny Rodgers!  I kid you not.  It all started good.  My getting ready checklist was a go…..golf balls and tees? Check.  Golf glove and shoes?  Check.  Golf visor?  Check.  Trolley?  Check.  Water?  Check.  So we loaded up the car and off we went to enjoy our day of social distancing.  

            We arrived at A.C. Read in plenty of time to get ourselves warmed up and ready to enjoy the round.  It was going to be a hot one.  The humidity was in the high 90’s, but as we approached the Starter I was experiencing that wonderful excitement of starting a round and just knew it was going to be an enjoyable day on the track – boy was I in for a surprise!  

            On the 1^st hole, I teed up my ball, set myself in position as I took a nice long look down the fairway, and swung away.  The sound of my club hitting the ball was solid and familiar.  This was going to be a good round! My sister once told me while we were playing golf, to never comment on your ball until it has stopped rolling.  I should have listened on this day.  My drive looked and felt perfect, and it was, until it stopped rolling….right into the bunker.  

And it just went down hill from there!!

            With each strike of the ball, my swing felt out of control.  My shots were all over the place, and I started to feel my blood pressure rising.  The more I tried to fix my swing, the worse it got.  I would swing and top my ball…and it seemed like the next 10 balls after that.  My golf partner (a.k.a. – husband) offered all kinds of advice – “slow down your swing….loosen your grip….stand up more….(and my all time favorite)….RELAX”. 

Are you kidding me?

His advice stopped at hole number 3, mostly because I politely (at least in my mind it was politely) told him I didn’t want any advice.  

            On the 9^th hole, I was exhausted and not in a pleasant mood.  After my drive, I approached my ball and thought about how I was going to hit it over the very tall grass and water hazard to the green.  It looked doable.  I just needed to loosen up a bit, shake off the last 8 holes and give it my best.  I coiled my body into my backswing, all the while feeling myself sweating in places I shouldn’t be sweating.  Somewhere along my downswing path, my mind wondered away from the task at hand and I totally missed the ball….and….

The club slipped out of my hands!

Yup – it went flying about 3 feet in front of me.  That was the last straw.  I looked up at the Golf Gods and acknowledged my day was done.  I picked up my ball, walked to my bag, turned to my golf partner and told him I was finished, and didn’t even score the round.  I headed to my car and loaded up my gear.  

            Our drive home was a quite one.  Once home, I put my gear away, opened a cold one and headed to the patio to unwind.  It wasn’t until I was half-way through my 2^nd beer that I started to reflect on how things went and what that meant for my game.  

I know bad rounds are inevitable.  Every golfer has experience dealing with a bad round.  But what will my response be to this round?  If I choose to feel bad for myself and dwell on how terrible it was, then another bad round is bound to happen.  I recognize that just because I played poorly today doesn’t mean I will automatically play poorly when I play again.  (Just like playing well one round, doesn’t mean I will automatically play well the next round)

Golf is fickle like that!

            Isn’t this the same way in life?  I know there will be bad days off the golf course.  In fact, I can pretty much count on that.  And it’s on those days I have to just embrace the bad and move on.     

            Which brings me to the theme song of the day.  In the Kenny Rodgers song the Gambler, the lyrics state: “you have to….know when to fold ‘em….”.   The Gambler continues:  “…the secret to survivin’ is to know what to throw away, and what to keep”.  It dawns on me….there is no shame in playing a bad round – but there is shame in letting it get the better of me.   

My Reads From the Reds:….The Gambler was right – “ You got to know when to fold ‘em”!

Fairways and Greens – We are 18 Holes and Counting.  Written by Kathy Festa