In 1996, Tiger Woods starred in an ad titled “Hello World”, announcing his entry onto the golf stage. That same year, I too said hello to the world, much less dramatically. (You can watch the ad below).
If you stumbled on this post and wondered why you should care that I was born, you shouldn’t. My name is Michael, and I am a perfectly average golfer. This blog will chronicle my quest to become a better-than-average. This first post will explain why.
The start: I was basically born with a club in my hand. I loved golfing from a young age, but I was never all that good at it. The highest level I ever competed at was high school, and I wasn’t all that good then either.
My golfing peak was the summer after I graduated high school. Free of worry or responsibility (my summer job was blogging – go figure), I played daily, and became respectable.
By the end of the summer I had a smooth, compact swing and could reliably shoot in the low 40s on a reasonably difficult track, occasionally shooting in the 30s.
Then came college. I went to school in Chicago. Between the long trek to the golf course, the cold, snowy weather, and the difficult schoolwork, I had very little time to practice, and my game atrophied. I played a bit in the summer-time, but the long, ugly swing I’d developed led to a painful wrist injury that made playing painful, and frankly not fun.
Well, I’m finally a graduate, out in the world and free to golf to my heart’s content (when I’m not working). I’m determined to get better. Much better.
Late last year I started chronicling my golfing exploits in a Google doc. This writing habit has been helpful at breaking down the mechanical and strategic flaws in my game and fixing them, especially since in the winter I could go weeks between rounds. That Google doc has gotten long and slow though. It now spans 21 pages and 4,900 words, and sorting through it is messy.
That’s the main reason I’m switching to WordPress. WordPress blogs are sortable, and it’s easy to embed media like swing videos right into the post. That it’s public also motivates me to keep getting better. I can’t fail in front of the 3 people that somehow stumble onto the blog and read it (Maybe I’m being optimistic).
Anyway, I’ll keep you posted.
Michael Golfs 