What Golf Feels Like When You're Bad

When I started Golf Unfiltered many years ago — and ChicagoDuffer.com before that — I primarily needed an outlet to discuss my thoughts on this game I grew up with. Over time I expanded to include thoughts on the professional game, followed by an obsession with golf equipment, but I began to notice a separation from my original focus.

Similarly, it now feels that the game has separated from me as well.

I fear I’ve reached a point where my golf game has regressed enough to make it unenjoyable. Whether it’s the sheer amount of golf I’ve played during COVID (which is A LOT), the hours of instructional tips I’ve researched or something else entirely, the game has gotten away from me.

Of course, this is all relative. Formerly a 6-handicap, I’ve yet to wander back over the 100 barrier… but I’ve come dangerously close. Some reading this may brush off my lament as ramblings from a privileged middle-aged golfer who has seen the promised land, but as someone whose career-low round is 65 (par 69), times are tough, baby.

When you partake in any activity meant to be recreational and find more heartache than you would feel had you not started that activity, you’re in a bad way. It’s like picking up a guitar only to feel sharp pains in your fingertips after 5 minutes of playing. You know how to do this thing, and sometimes do it very well, but your body isn’t allowing you to enjoy it as much as your brain wants you to.

Some will say to '“just go out and have fun.” But it isn’t fun. It’s not any fun at all.

Golfers become pantomimes or award-winning actors who must hide their true selves when playing badly. Failure to do this labels someone as a “hot head” or otherwise undesirable as a golfing partner. So the next 4+ hours are spent feigning enjoyment, often for the benefit of those around us, when in reality we’d love to walk directly into the nearest lake and never come back.

Thoughts of what we’re losing instead of gaining flood our minds. We paid for this experience, often times more than we should have, and repeatedly lose pricey equipment (and our aforementioned minds) in the process. At some point we wonder if we’d be happier if we never stepped onto the first tee.

To play bad golf is to miss the point entirely. It’s impossible to play anything and be bad at that thing. Your performance is just that: a moment in time devoid of expectations, regardless of how much we’ve been conditioned to think otherwise. Hearing a golfer say “I played bad today” is a construct of comparing ourselves to something else while playing the most individual game possible.

Golf is the mirror that reflects our understanding of enjoyment. If we don’t like what we see, it has nothing to do with the game. Golf presents us with the opportunity to be entirely present with every element around us, and we somehow manage to screw it up every time.