Sub 100

I shot a 99 today. That’s a good score for me. Not a personal best but I consider anything under 100 as nothing short of miraculous. It makes me feel like celebrating, like going straight over to Golf Galaxy and buying myself a brand new set of Ping golf clubs. But of course I won’t. I’m too sensible for that. Whenever I shoot below 100, which has happened only a few times in my life, I say to myself, “See? You can shoot in the high 90s. That means you’re just a few strokes away from shooting in the low 90s.” I am constantly raising the bar for myself. I am my own Tiger mom.

My actual mom was not a Tiger mom at all. She never pressured me. If anything, she left me alone most of the time. She had already had two daughters ahead of me, so by the time I came around, the excitement had worn off.

Today I played with Seri, and another Korean woman whom I’ll call Bea. Seri has become my unofficial coach (aside from hubby). Bea was the woman I had met on the range awhile back, the one who could drive the ball 235 yards. She’d been having back problems, so she hadn’t played for a few months. She’s well enough now to get back in the game.

Seri and Bea rode together. As I walked behind, dragging my pull-cart, I watched them chattering away in Korean to each other, completely ignoring me, but not out of rudeness. They reminded me of my two older sisters who, when we were younger, spoke in their own language of clothes and makeup. I was the third wheel, the geeky younger sister who wore eyeglasses and preferred books to lipstick.

Because I’m so used to it from childhood, I actually don’t mind being ignored. It’s a familiar feeling, so I think it puts me in the zone. After all, golf is a game of keeping yourself together. It’s about keeping your wits about you and trying to maintain an even keel. Playing with Seri and Bea there -- looking out for me and cheering for me like sisters, but not distracting me -- was the next best thing to playing alone.

It helped that my longish drives were holding up and that my putting strokes hovered around 2. I also shunned my beloved 7-wood in favor of my 7 utility hybrid, which worked out well for keeping second shots in the fairway. But I missed the green on every par 3 today, which is what hurt my score a bit. As Gilda Radner’s Saturday Night Live character Roseanne Roseannadanna once said, “It’s always something.”

Some highlights of the day: I hit one freakishly long drive 195 yards on a flat fairway and had another roll 222 yards down a gentle slope. It was warm today, in the mid-60s, so that probably helped too. My current goal is to drive 200 yards on a regular basis. And score in the 90s all the time. Then maybe I’ll start shopping for some shiny new golf clubs. And maybe a crystal-studded ball marker too. As I slowly become fluent in golf, I am finally learning to appreciate cute accessories. Golf, like growing up, can be a tough game for girls, and as my sisters knew, having pretty little things somehow does make you feel better.