Golfing in Pain in the Rain

Seri: What do you think, should we play?
Me: I think so. The weather says only a 30% chance of rain.

Seri: Really? My forecast says 60% chance between 11 and 4.

Me: I'm using National Weather Service. What are you using?
Seri: Accuweather.

Me: Let's check the radar. I like WBAL TV radar.
Seri: You know, radar is not always accurate, but I'll check mine.

[Silence while we both check our preferred weather radar services.]

Me: You're right, mine is showing green clouds between 11 and 4. [The green clouds are how clouds show up on the radar. They are not actually green.]

Seri: Well, what do you think, should we play?

Long story short, we decided to play. It was a tough, hilly city course but I wanted to walk to get a workout. I only planned to play 9 because my leg was still bothering me, as well as my left shoulder. It was cloudy and a bit chilly, which instantly put a cramp into my leg. 

But still, I played. And I actually played pretty well. I've already documented the beneficial effects that being in pain has on my game. But sometimes I play better in the rain too. It didn't rain the whole time. At first it was just a drizzle. But that fine, constant mist in the air has a tendency to lend a sense of urgency to the game. The skies could open up at any moment, so you better make the most of the time you've got before it does. 

Because the ground is wet as a sponge, any amount the ball would normally roll can be removed from the equation. Throughout the round, I just zapped the yardage with my range finder and took one extra club. There's less break on wet greens, and somehow my ball found the cup much more easily than usual. I even made a birdie on a par 3.

After 8 holes, I had shot only 5 over par. And then the skies opened up. I discovered that my supposedly waterproof windbreaker is merely water-resistant. And that golf umbrella I got for free at a tournament once really lets water in like a sieve. The 9th hole was an uphill par 5, and I was so soaked by the time I reached the tee, I couldn't keep a grip on my club. It took me 4 shots to get on the green but I managed a two-putt to save bogey, even with water dripping off my baseball cap brim and my leg throbbing.

So, I shot 6 over after 9 holes in the end. Now if only I could do that twice in a row on a sunny day, without pain. But I know there are some things I can't control. So I better make the most of the things within my control while I can.

Mental Problems

I played golf with Seri and Auntie the other day. Auntie is the aunt of one of the Korean ladies that Seri plays golf with. Auntie is very quiet. I've played with her in the past, and I thought she was quiet because her English was not very good, but actually her English is fine. She is just quiet by nature. She wears large, dark sunglasses that remind me of John Belushi in the movie Blues Brothers, but her quietness reminds me of Teller of the magician duo Penn & Teller. 

Over the winter, Seri had broken a rib after slipping on ice. She has recovered enough to play golf again but still has pain, and her game is not up to her usual level. She told me she is leaving to go back to Korea in June because her son is off to college this fall so she does not need to live here with him anymore. The thought of her leaving makes me sad and I miss her already.

It was a quiet round. Seri was not as talkative perhaps because she was still in pain. I was quiet too, knowing that it was one of the last rounds I would play with Seri. I also had some pain from a myofascial issue I have been dealing with in my right leg that comes and goes all day long.

Perhaps because it was so quiet, and I was a bit preoccupied with my pain, I played extremely well, the way I sometimes find that having a migraine improves my game, if only because my mind is focused on something besides golf, so the golf is forced to happen naturally, by instinct. Before I knew it, I had shot only 7 over on the front 9. I'd avoided all the bunkers and made some miraculous putts to save pars. At the turn, I ate a banana and kept the streak going. Then I made the mistake of looking at my scorecard and calculating ahead. After hole 15, I was only 10 over. I started thinking if only I could par the last three holes, I could shoot an 82 for the whole round. Even if I shot bogeys on the last three holes, I could shoot an 85, which would still be a record for me. I could even shoot 2 double-bogeys and a bogey and still score a personal best. My mind started spinning with excitement. That's when things went awry.

On hole 16, I took out my 5-wood, which I hadn't hit all round. I thought I'd be safe hitting 5-wood since driver and 3-wood could end up out of bounds. Little did I know that 5-wood also had its perils. I ended up pulling my shot left down a hill into a hazard. Even with the penalty, I was on in 3, but it took me 3 putts to hole out. Still, a double-bogey at that point wasn't the end of the world. Nothing worse could happen, right?

Wrong. Hole 17 was a par 3. It's a tough hole with water on the left. I aimed to the right, giving me plenty of room to draw the ball back left. Who could have predicted that my tee ball would bounce on the cart path, sending it flying who knows where? As we approached the green, my ball was nowhere to be found, so it could have gone over the rainbow or into outer space as far as we knew. After the drop and penalties, I ended up with a triple-bogey.

At hole 18, a par 5, I started thinking, maybe I could birdie... but by then, I'd realized how much energy I'd wasted with such theoretical fantasies. I focused on the task at hand. Just hit the ball. Which I did. A nice, normal drive was followed by an errant second shot into the woods. But I punched out, made it to the green in 4, and then took 2 nice, normal putts to save bogey. In the end, I shot a 90. A nice, normal score. For me anyway. I also noticed that my leg was pain-free for the moment, perhaps because all the mental machinations had drawn my focus elsewhere. But feeling nice and normal for awhile was a very welcome side effect, even if it did ruin my game.

An Unexpected Prize

So I won another closest-to-the-pin contest. The woman's league I joined hasn't started playing yet, so a fellow member of that league, whom I'll call Miss J, invited me to play with her. Miss J is in her mid-thirties, so she's younger than most women in the league, and she has the larger-than-life personality of a diva but without the ego. Anyway, Miss J texted me and asked if I wanted to join her for golf with "a group she plays with weekly." Turns out, that "group" was another league, a men's league of mostly firefighters and policemen to be exact. Miss J belongs to four different leagues and she is the only woman in this men's league. But she said they are looking for more women to join.

When I showed up at the golf course and saw the 20 or so guys that we'd be playing with, I thought to myself, this could be interesting. There was excitement and confusion in the air, as the day's pairings hadn't been made and people were still hustling to put money down on the day's bets. Miss J said we should each put in $5 for the closest-to-the-pin contest. One of the CTP holes was for a set of headcovers autographed by a famous football player. The other CTP hole was for money.

Miss J and I were paired with two of the seniors so our tees wouldn't be so far apart. They sent us out first, even though Miss J and I were walking with pull-carts. Maybe it was the adrenaline, but my first shot off the tee was long and straight. I actually made par on the first hole, which I've only one two other times at that course. Unfortunately, the rest of the front 9 was riddled with doubles and triples, mainly due to my short game and the fact that Miss J and I talked incessantly. But when you're playing with a new gal you've never played with before, the getting-to-know-you chitchat is a necessary evil. None of our foursome landed the green on Hole 8, the first CTP hole, but that was for the headcovers so we didn't mind.

After the turn, I had some butter cookies and got my groove back and started making pars again. Hole 14 was the second CTP hole, the one for the money. It was a par 3 over water, and I'd played it many, many times. As I walked up to the tee, I joked, "Time for my hole in one!" I bent over to set my ball on the tee and got a head rush when I stood up. I took deep breaths till I wasn't seeing stars anymore. Then I aimed and took my swing. It was a perfect, pure shot. It landed in front of the hole, about 12 inches away.

In the end, I took the prize for closest-to-the-pin on that hole, which was $46 in cash. Add that to the fact that I shot 5 over on the back 9, which is the lowest back 9 I'd ever shot on that course. Oh, and I joined that men's league too. In total, the joys of the day were quite unexpected; the best kind.

The Ball That Could Fly

I played my first 18 holes of the season last week. I invited a slightly older woman I'd met training at the gym a couple weeks ago. She had good game, meaning she could get the ball in the air most of the time, but she had this tendency to talk while I was getting ready to swing. We were playing with two guys, a young one and an old one. When I was on the tee box at a par 3, I heard her chitchatting with the old guy, so I stopped and just looked at them till they got the message to hush up. Of course, my shot was ruined anyway and I ended up in a bunker. The next time, she decided to whisper loudly to the old dude just as I was getting ready to putt, so I had to turn to her and say, "Really? While I'm actually putting?" in as good-humored a way as I could. Truth is, though, I was quite annoyed. Call me old-fashioned, but talking during other people's swings and putts is just flat-out rude, especially among virtual strangers.

Since the woman seemed to be striking up a relationship with the old guy, I decided to chat with the young one. He was hitting from the blues, and I noticed he was a long hitter. I'll call him the Irish Lad since his first and last names clearly indicated that his ancestors must have hailed from the Emerald Isle.

"So, are you in a men's league or something?" I asked.
"No, I just play when I can," he said. "I work in sales, so I travel a lot and my schedule is flexible."

I quickly discovered what a stupid question it was to ask if he was in a men's league because his partner, the old dude, revealed that the Irish Lad was actually a former pro golfer. He played the developmental Hooter's tour and was once sponsored by Ping, though it didn't last. He missed the cut at the U.S. Open local qualifier a few years back, then suffered a health-related setback. Now he's training to try and make the cut again this summer.

I should have known that the Irish Lad was a pro. He had a quiet, modest demeanor, didn't curse and showed no emotion even when he hit a ball into the water. But most of all, he had a true golf whisper. I noticed that even when he was giving instruction to his partner (they didn't seem to talk except when the old guy asked for advice), I couldn't hear what he was saying. Even while on the same putting green, I could see lips moving but I couldn't hear sound coming out, as if he knew the exact decibel level for his vocals to travel exactly 1.5 feet and no more. This must be a talent that can only be developed on a professional tour.

Playing with high-level golfers always makes me nervous, but it also makes me want to play better. I noticed that I was hitting longer than usual, which I credit to my golf trainer making me work on my obliques. On a tee shot at a par 5, my ball flew in a perfect draw trajectory, up the fairway, farther than it had ever flown that fairway before. It was as if my ball had wings.

The Irish Lad said, "Wow, you out-drove me." Of course, my tee box was about 150 yards shorter than his, but I took it as a compliment. What made me beam inside, though, was the knowledge than I'd out-driven myself. So far, the work I'd been putting into strength-training seems to be paying off. While I've been wearing an elbow compression band to prevent tendinitis, these early outings have given me the confidence to look forward to the season.

And news flash -- I finally joined a women's league. It's a different one than the one I almost joined last year. I was encouraged to join by a woman whom I'll call "Sergeant Pixie" because she's a petite redhead who once served in the Air Force and has an effervescent, optimistic quality to her, although she is also disciplined and tough. She's kind of like an ex-military Tinkerbell. We'd gotten together for a few 9-hole pre-season rounds in the past couple weeks; it was fun and she didn't do anything annoying. I decided that if the other members of her league were like her, then the league would have the right mix of sociability & self-improvement. So I joined. League play doesn't start till mid-May. In the meantime, I'll be testing out those wings on my golf ball.

An Early Start

Planks, wood chops, bench squats, band walks, Supermans. Events in a superhero lumberjack contest? No, these are the names of exercises my personal trainer has me doing every week. Since January, I've been hitting the gym and doing golf-specific strength training with a guy who is half my age and has a -3 handicap. (That's a negative handicap, i.e. better than scratch.) Every session is a different series of exercises to build up core and upper body strength. The result? I feel stronger. Not quite strong enough to flip over a car, but strong enough to swing a golf club a little faster without hurting myself.

Because the weather has been unseasonably nice in the last two weeks, in the 70s. I've already played 9 holes twice, walking with a cart. The first time I didn't score but I did make 2 pars. The second time, I shot 10 over 9 holes, which is not a bad start for me. I think I may have even gained a bit of distance, thanks to all the wood chop exercises. I'm still not sure I want to keep a handicap again this year. I plan on playing twice a week max so I don't overstress my elbow like I did last year. That old tendon flared up a little on these early outings, but as long as I use a compression band and don't overwork it, hopefully it will hold up. I've really been focusing on getting my right hand more active to prevent stressing out the left forearm.

I think I'll be ready to play 18 holes this weekend. Temps are forecast to be in the mid 60s, and there might be a bit of rain. But let's hope not.

Golf Resolutions for 2016

Another year has flown by and it's time to reflect on my golfy pursuits of the past year and craft some attainable goals for the new one.

First, let's review and see how I did last year.

#1: Lower my handicap. I ended the season with a 17.5, which is lower than the previous year's 19. I think I could have done even better if my season had not been stymied by elbow tendonitis.
#2: Learn to enjoy playing competitively. I didn't play any tournaments this year, so I didn't get the chance to work at this resolution. I think it means I probably shouldn't have made it a resolution in the first place. Golf is a game to me, not a competition.
#3: Become a more consistent putter. Well this past year, hubby once made a point to compliment me on my putting, which is saying something. I think I have become a better greens reader, though, and I am more consistent about setting up with the ball slightly left of center to compensate for my right-eye dominance. It's a technique that really works. 
#4: Break 80 (or maybe just 85). Ummm, not yet. Shot some 89s though.
#5: Play another bucket list course. Still haven't made it out to Bandon Dunes. Does Port Royal in Bermuda count?

Twilight scene from my last December round of 2015, at Coronado Golf Course in San Diego, CA.

Okay, now for the new year's resolutions. I really just have one:

Resolution #1: Get fit for golf. After I injured my forearm a few months ago, I should have quit for the season, but I felt compelled to play 9 holes here and there because the weather was so awesome. I rested for a month, then played 3 rounds over the last two weeks in December. Hubby and I spent the Christmas holiday in Carlsbad, CA, and I knew it would be the last rounds before the cold East Coast winter. Though I wasn't doing my forearm any favors, it helped to wear a compression band while playing. I even made a birdie and several memorable pars.

During this winter downtime, I need to do more than rest my forearm. I believe that developing strength is key to preventing injury in golf, so I'm planning to enlist a personal trainer to help me increase my muscle strength, especially in my upper body and core, and correct muscle imbalances caused by golf, as well as work-related repetitive stress (e.g. sitting and typing on a computer). While I do plenty of cardio for endurance, plus pilates, yoga and stretching for flexibility, I have no strength training regimen to speak of, other than the muscle toning that comes with doing pilates.

I have an assessement appointment with a personal trainer at my gym on Thursday. He works with a lot of golfers. I'll keep you posted...

Giving Thanks for a Birdie Chance

At the gym today I ran into a woman who doesn't golf but who knows I golf. "How's the golf?" she asked.
   I pointed to my elbow. "I haven't golfed for awhile," I said. "I have tendonitis."
   "Is it tennis elbow or the true golfer's elbow?" she asked.
   "Actually, it's neither," I said, impressed that she knew there was a difference. "Just some other kind of tendonitis near my elbow, according to my physical therapist." Although I thought I had tennis elbow from golf, it turns out I don't. However, the treatment has been the same: rest, stretching, strengthening, and some interesting treatments involving paraffin wax and ultrasound. Plus forearm massages.

The woman at the gym knew all about tennis elbow, since she had it in both arms. Hers was not from tennis either, but from her job as a dental hygienist. Her husband has had tennis elbow -- from golf -- for about 3 years. Between the two of them, they've had every treatment in the book, from physical therapy to laser treatments to surgery. They also use the FlexBar, which uses eccentric (say it like "eee-centric") to strengthen the elbow tendons the correct way. My physical therapist has me doing eccentric exercises too, but using a regular 3-lb hand weight and flexing my left wrist down (not up).

Since developing tendonitis in my elbow, I've encountered at least six people who have had it. That's the thing about being human. Physically, humans are generally made of the same stuff: blood, muscles, bones, organs and tendons and such. No hurt, injury, affliction or disease is so great or so small that you will eventually run into someone else who's suffered from the same thing. And sometimes, just knowing that can ease the pain.

Every little bit helps, but the main problem is so many things can stress the elbow tendons, like cooking, driving, typing on a computer and even shampooing one's hair, that it's hard to truly rest. But at least I've managed to stay off the golf course.

Except for that gorgeous, sunny day in the 60s a couple of weeks ago. I went out to play 9 holes, took two Advil and wore a compression sleeve on my left forearm. I played gingerly and deliberately, in terms of my mental game, and made a great effort to really use my core on the downswing, relying less on my arms, until the very end of the swing when I had to whip through and release. Perhaps because of my increased focus on technique, I hit some of the longest drives I've hit all season.

On a par 4, I hit a great drive and landed a lucky, long second shot to within birdie chance of the hole. I didn't make it, but I holed out for a solid par. I played fairly well, and part of me was tempted to go for 18 holes. But I did the smart thing and stopped.

Since then, I haven't golfed at all and part of me is dying inside. It's gonna be one of the warmest Thanksgiving holidays in recent years, and normally I'd be looking forward to getting in a round. But not this year. Maybe in another month, if I do what I'm supposed to and things go as planned, I will play again. I may even get another shot at birdie. And for that, I am truly thankful.