Golf: Ways to Ruin My Round

Yesterday was Memorial Day 2017, and I had the good fortune of playing a round of golf with my Dad and Brother. My round went about as well as you could expect for a man of Irish descent who doesn’t practice: alternating flashes of bonhomie and blind rage.

The best thing about golf is the variety of ways to ruin my golf round. I thought about past personal golf wreckage and arranged common causes of calamity from most to least likely to result in one of my clubs going airborne:

1. Whiffs: This is tolerable or embarrassing depending on my acting skills and the cynicism and proximity of other golfers. There is a chance missing the ball can be turned into a “practice swing” if you sell it. I’ve found it helpful to say things like “Wow, I just made a great practice swing” and “It helps me stay loose when I intentionally miss the ball every so often.”
2. Missed putts: Based on what I’ve observed, most greens are rigged so that the ball doesn’t go in the hole. However, getting too upset with this reality is like getting upset with gravity—not helpful (if gravity were helpful it would make my ball fall in the hole). Instead, I find it more productive to focus on peace and serenity. In any case, anecdotal testimonies suggests I only count 2 putts per hole anyway.
3. Sand: As dispiriting as it is hitting my ball into the sand trap and thinking about the 7 hacks and 14 pounds of sand I’ll need to displace to get out, at least I didn’t lose that free golf ball I found in those weird plants earlier. Unfortunately, displaced sand grains coat my sticky, sunscreen-slathered skin in ways that are not enjoyable. I look like a Spiderman villain.
4. Rough: I’ll be honest, most golf course layouts are incredibly poorly thought out. Usually the longest grass is where most of my balls go! I can usually live with it except when the grass gets so long I can’t find my ball 3 inches off the fairway. Also, it’s embarrassing when I forget where I hit my ball and lose it. Fortunately, surreptitious ball-dropping skills come in handy. Drop a replacement ball, act like nothing happened, and avoid counting a penalty stroke. The penalty stroke for a lost ball is unfair anyway. Like I said, they purposefully put long grass where I hit my ball just to thwart me!
5. Houses: Where’s Bernie Sanders when you need him? All these elitist homeowners telling me I can’t go on their “property” and hit my ball? How bourgeois. They should thank me for leaving divots in their yards; they don’t have to mow those areas now.
6. Hitting it thin: Why strike the whole ball if you can just hit the top half? Efficiency is usually rewarded in life, but not in golf. If I strike only 50% of the golf ball I’m rewarded with the sight of my ball piddling down the fairway with urgency equivalent to a DMV employee.
7. Hitting it fat: The obesity epidemic can extend to golf as well, namely when I excise a massive chunk of turf out of the ground before striking the ball. And 3 more pelts afterwards as I exact revenge on the Earth for causing me to hit a bad shot.
8. Water: Very rage-inducing. Classic self-fulfilling prophecy: “Avoid the water. Avoid the water. Avoid the water…it’s in the water.” Prophecies are the worst.