Category: Blog

Hello! I have reached my twentieth post! I think a milestone this large merits ice cream, but my mom would probably disagree. It’s too bad, because I really like ice cream. Anyway, this post will be about one of the reasons it is nice to be on the high school golf team. I will be writing about the friends I have made in my golf “career” (although not by name, of course). Last year I was also on the Farmington High School team (as you may already know), and it was wonderful. I made some friends, and it was also a great introduction to high school. This year, however, has been ten times better! Why? Partly because I know what everyone’s talking about. I must admit, I felt rather left out at times last year because I didn’t know what people were talking about. This year, I can join in more conversations because, for instance, I know what the dress code is or I saw that fight in the cafeteria. The biggest reason is because I have friends in multiple circles—I can relate to all the homework they got and discuss the latest tournament with them. Last year, I probably knew about four people well. This year, I’m close friends with at least six people and know practically everyone on the team by name. There’s even one boy who eats lunch with me because we have a class together and we’re both on the golf team. I also eat lunch with a girl who was on the team last year and her friends, and, unfortunately, she isn’t fond of him. However, she never gets upset with me for causing him to sit with us and he never leaves. That’s a minor dilemma I haven’t solved yet. It’s very puzzling. Teenagers don’t make sense—and I should know. I am one! Whoops, I really went off on a tangent there. Sorry. The golf team is practically its own society. Everyone knows at least one other person, so, in a roundabout way, everyone knows everyone else. Also, as Farmington is a rather small place, an amazing amount of people are related to other people. There’s one girl on the team who has actually discovered three relatives. None are related by blood, just by marriage, but it’s   still incredible. So, this girl knew she was step-siblings with one of the boys on the team. It turns out that one of her stepbrother’s relatives was married to another boy’s cousin, meaning all three of them were related. Later, it was discovered (by me and the girl) that the boy who eats lunch with me is cousins with her stepbrother and another random boy who is on the team. Therefore, this girl is, in some way or another, related to four of the boys on the team.  If that didn’t make sense to you, that’s fine. It doesn’t make much sense to me, either. Also, I used the term cousin kind of freely. I don’t know exactly how they are related to her. This is why I love being part of a sports team—I have more friends than I ever did before. It took me a while to learn how to find actual friends and not people who said they were my friends. I can be very naive at times, and have had “friends” who were either using me, trying to look good by having “friends,” or just making fun of me. I usually realize this has happened before two years have passed, but have been known to defend these people for up to four years. I have literally had this happen in every school setting I’ve ever been in, from preschool to home school to high school, but never on a golf team. I think it’s because when you’re on a sports team, even one where you play on your own, the members have to rely on each other to some extent, and people have to really know one another. People also seem to find it harder to hide who they are when they’re playing a game. It’s easy to tell who’s competitive, who’s pessimistic, who’s downright mean, and who’s simply playing to play. Of course, it’s also nice to just to get to play golf at least five times a week. The golf team is, hands down, my favorite part of high school. -Birdie

Hello! This post won’t be focusing on any trick or on the mental game. It’s pretty much just a summary of my second Varsity tournament. (For the story of my first one, see Post #6.) It also rehashes elements of Post #5: Crazy Conditions. I apologize if I’m getting a little repetitive, but I kind of used up all my major subjects. But hey, every game is different, right? This tournament got weird before we even got on the bus—which we had been told would arrive between 7:30 and 7:45 AM. I arrived around 7:35—and proceeded to wait for forty-five minutes. Anyway, eventually the bus came and we all got on. Then, as we were leaving the parking lot, there was a small amount of confusion as to whether I was on the bus. (I usually find a relatively isolated row.) Once I had assured the other players I was just sitting a couple of rows ahead of them, we were underway. Once we got to the course, I had a little time to practice. The greens were faster than I expected, as I discovered when my first putt rolled clear over the green. (For reference, I usually leave my putts short.) I spent about fifteen minutes practicing downhill putts, and once I could keep them on the green, I called it good. I played the actual game with two very nice girls, one of whom I was already acquainted  with. We all tied the first couple of holes with bogeys. I managed to maintain my bogey streak for three holes (which I was quite pleased about). Then I got three double bogeys (which I was mostly pleased about). On hole 7 I managed my first par. I believe I may have made a bit of a fool of myself—giggling and grinning like a maniac isn’t exactly standard procedure. I have completely forgotten the next three holes, so they must not have been important. Oh wait, I remember the last of those three because that was when the wind started. I don’t mean a stiff breeze or a couple of strong gusts. I mean hard, sustained, never-at-our-backs wind. I almost wondered if we were getting a little bit of a hurricane! That was silly, but really, that was a lot of wind. I remember holes 11 and 12 because I got two pars! Yay! Something really interesting happened on hole 13, but it didn’t happen to me. One of the other girls hit her ball into a tree, and it stayed there. It took forever to find it, and although repeated attempts to knock it down with a water bottle were made, it is probably still up there. Meanwhile, the wind was still blowing, although a little less violently. On the next hole, it was my turn to shine—similar to how a meteor shines as it plummets through Earth’s atmosphere and smashes into hundreds of pieces on impact. Or how a building shines as it goes up in flames. It was a par 4 with a lateral water hazard on the left side. My tee shot rolled right in. So, I dropped a ball and hit from where my ball crossed into the hazard. It went fifteen feet in front of me and bashed a hole in the water weed on its way in. Whoops! At this point, I was hitting six. My next shot went a reasonable distance and rolled down the bank of the water hazard. After that, I managed to escape the evil clutches of the Hazard of Hole Fourteen. Sadly, I did not hit a miraculous eighth shot. Instead, I got an eleven. At a Varsity tournament. Whoops indeed! After that, my game went slightly downhill. It is demoralizing when one bombs a hole. I did manage to stay mostly positive, though. I only got triple bogeys on the next two holes! I would like to note that one can stay positive while not being overjoyed at an unfortunate event. The rest of the game was all double bogeys and bogeys for me—in other words, uneventful. When the scores were all in, I had placed fifth out of twelve girls with a 101. I really couldn’t care less about where I placed, though. I was just happy that I had gotten one of my all-time lowest scores WITH an eleven and no mulligans! Overall, this was one of my favorite games. It had everything: a challenging course, ridiculous weather, weird shots, nice people, good holes and bad holes. Also, the scenery on the drive was beautiful. This was also one of my favorite posts to write—although it took over an hour to write and kept me up past 10:00 (my preferred bedtime). So, goodnight and goodbye!   -Birdie

Hi! I know the title may seem over-dramatic, and it probably is. However, I am feeling a little over-dramatic and golf has been essential to me during these past two weeks. I am about to go into my fourth week of school and am mildly surprised I’m still alive! I have way too much homework, don’t know if I’m failing Algebra 1 (who gives a quarterly test and then reveals that you won’t be able to access your grade for two or three weeks?!), and find lunch hour much too loud. The only thing keeping me sane is the golf practice every day. I’m not saying I don’t like high school. I like almost all my teachers (I’m withholding judgement on one) and know kids in almost every class now. However, it’s stressful for me even under good circumstances. By the time my mom picks me up, I’m physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. It’s really not fair to my mom—she has to listen to me freak out and complain about everything that happened that day. So, I arrive at the golf course in a bit of a tizzy. I’m usually thinking about how tired I am and how great it would be to go home and go to bed—who cares if it’s 3:30! Only whoops, if I go home I have to do a pile of homework that I have to turn in tomorrow that I don’t want to do.  It’s not a fun state of mind. Anyway, I head over to the driving range or putting green (depending on which course we are at), say hello to the coach that is there and any of the kids I’m friends with or know. Then I either hit some balls or figure out how smooth the green is. Once I’m happy with my swing or resigned to it, I’m not angry anymore and both coaches are there. I usually end up chatting with whoever’s standing closest to me while I wait to find out if I’m just practicing or going out to play a few holes. One huge plus to actually being in high school is that I know what people are talking about and can join in more conversations. For instance, the last practice was at Civitan. When I got there I was depressed and feeling overwhelmed, but all that soon changed. Two other girls and I went out and played nine holes. The quality of our shots was unremarkable, but I think we all really enjoyed playing. I know I did! I like and respect both of my playing companions; they’re both really nice. Playing golf, and especially playing with people I like, takes my mind off whatever I may be obsessing about. Even getting an atrocious score on hole five made me feel better—who cared if I messed up, it’s just a game! By the end of the game, I was so much happier I felt nearly giddy! If I wasn’t going out and golfing almost every afternoon after school, I’d be miserable. I’d never be able to stop thinking about what I should be getting done, and never what I wanted to get done. I definitely don’t believe that thinking that way is healthy, but it’s part of my nature and really hard for me not to do. Golfing helps me gain perspective because it makes everything else seem far away and unimportant. Also, I can’t feel like I’m wasting my time because it’s a school activity. Anything I chose to do on my own time would make me feel like I could be getting something more “important” done. So, while golf may not be literally saving my life, it’s certainly making it livable.   -Birdie

Big news! I re-entered the public school system after six years of being homeschooled! It has been exhausting and stressful. Also, I have an inhumane amount of homework, so this is going to be a short post about what’s new in my life and two recent high school practice. (Oh yeah, high school golf has started again too.) Here goes! The very first thing I learned in high school is that I hate assemblies. They are way too loud and crowded and repetitive. But… I made a friend in my Human Geography class. That’s about all that happened the first day. The only significant thing that happened on the second day was that I got a lot of English homework. Or, at least, I thought I got a lot of homework in English. Turns out that was nothing! Since then, I have “passed” all my pretests (they’re not graded), made two friends in Theater, found a group of friends to eat lunch with, made one friend who is in Child Development and Physical Science, had a seating rearrangement in Human Geography that means I can’t talk to my friend anymore, learned that I can’t try out for anything in Theater because of my golf schedule, and somehow lost my friend in Child Development and Physical Science. Also, did I mention that there’s a lot of English homework? …And that’s really everything that I find in my head at the moment. Last Friday I went to a high school golf practice. It turned out that I was too stressed and tired to golf well or deal with not golfing well. (Frankly, I might have been miserable even if I got all birdies. As it was, I got one bogey and that was my best score.) I was (and still am) not used to loud noises, huge crowds, no one to talk to the majority of the time, and schedules. The cumulative stress had reached oh-well-it’s-past-critical-screw-it-all levels, and there was no gleam of positivity in my mind. It is off that gleam that I start my mind tricks. Without it, I don’t have a chance of coming back after a bad shot. The next Tuesday, I attended another practice at the Country Club. Having just started a new week, I was (somewhat) well rested and a little more confident after getting great grades the first week. At that practice, I went out to play a scramble with another member of the girls’ golf team against our coach. I had already warmed up, and hit a great drive off the first hole. This, of course, meant my capacity to hit well went nowhere but up. We managed to get a par and two bogeys, and by the last hole we played, we were leading the coach by two. Then, we got stuck in a bunker and ended with a double bogey. Meanwhile, our coach got his first birdie of the day and beat us by one. Did this upset me? No! I was flying so high as to be almost giddy, and anyway, being beaten by your coach isn’t unusual. I mean, if you beat your coach on a regular basis, I kind of question if you should have a coach. This illustrates how differently my game goes depending on how calm and rested I am. This post is also meant to illustrate that if you are unhappy in the first place, it might be next to impossible to have any of my tricks work. To pull them off, you have to have some positivity to build off of. Now, I’d love to write more, but I have to do my English homework. If I’m quick, I could be done in two-and-a-half hours!   -Birdie  

Hi! This last week has flown by, what with it being the last week of summer golf. I think the most valuable lesson I learned this summer was to avoid putting with the back of a nine iron! (At one point this week, the class went out to play a game with only one club, and I chose a nine iron. I never did figure out how to use it to putt!) Anyway, in this post I’m branching out and discussing golf strategy. The strategy I’m focusing on is when to take “high risk, high reward” shots. A little bit of history is that I spent almost every high school golf practice last year attempting these shots, and spent just as much time being told to play it safe. For instance, until last spring I would chip off of the fringe no matter how much easier it would be to putt. It was a matter of principle to me: Putters are for the putting green, not the fringe. This would often end badly, as I rarely hit passable chips and pitches. Due to a great deal of experience and the patience of my high school coach, I have become more lenient about where I can use my putter. So where and when is it okay to take risky shots? This depends on many things, some of which are your skill level, why you want to take the shot, and what situation you are in.  When I say your skill level, I mean how confident you are that you can make the shot and how much you have practiced said shot. Have you successfully hit a similar shot? Can you consistently hit this variety of shot well? What situation you are in is very important because it may be part of the reason why you are taking this shot in in the first place. For example, you might be in a tournament you really want to win, but unless you can hit a really awesome shot, you don’t have a chance of winning. I can’t really give any advice here, as I have never been in that situation. However, I’ve observed people who appear to be in this situation, hit a risky shot, and end up even worse off than they were before. I’ve also seen the exact opposite outcome. If you want to hit a risky shot during a practice or a casual game, though, I say go for it! What’s the worst that can happen? Now, this may seem to go against what I just said in some ways, but it is also the most important part: Don’t overthink your shot. If you spend too much time thinking about what might go wrong, chances are that you’ll mess up your shot. Just do a reality check of sorts—ask yourself if what you’re doing makes sense. If looking before you leap in golf messes you up, just disregard what I said in the previous paragraph. The advice there is more for those who go for it and consistently find that they aren’t managing to pull it off. People like me! Wow—I think I may have turned this into a post about your mental game. Whoops! Anyway, it does involve more strategy than previous ones have. I hope you liked it!   -Birdie

Welcome to my fifteenth post! As you can see, this post is about why I golf (although a more fitting name might be Why I Keep Golfing). This post will also include some clarifications about previous posts and some information about big changes coming up for me. Let’s get started! So, to begin we must go back almost six years to when I started golfing. One day my dad told my mom that he was going golfing. My mom told him that he couldn’t leave the house  unless he took a kid with him. As I was the only one who was willing (my sister wouldn’t and still won’t have anything to do with golf) and able (the oldest of my younger brothers was only a toddler), I went with my dad. I enjoyed it a lot, and my parents enrolled me in golf lessons the next summer. There have been a lot of ups and downs since then, and I have sworn to never play golf again more times than I can count. And yet… I’m still writing a golf blog. Why am I still at it? I can’t stand being competitive, so a drive to win isn’t what makes me golf. My parents literally couldn’t put less pressure to do well in golf on me, so that’s not it either. The reason I golf is because I love the sport, no matter what it throws at me. (I could liken it to my relationship with my youngest brother—I love him and he used to throw things at me, too!) It makes me happy to be outside and, as my sister would say, hitting a little ball with a metal stick. I like meeting new people and learning from others, and I feel that’s something you don’t experience as fully in other sports. I golf for the joy of it. Still, getting upset when I did badly put a damper on my enjoyment, so I’ve spent about five years designing and strengthening my mental game. This brings me to the clarifications I promised. Looking back on my other posts, I’ve realized that I have made the mind tricks seem easier than they are. In reality, they are not easy to put into practice. Sometimes, they don’t even work. All I have done is outline the method and mindset I use. I feel it’s only fair to mention that mind tricks have their faults. The last part of my post is about what’s happening in my life. There is only one more week of golf, and after that I have a one week gap until school starts. This may not seem that huge, but it is for me for two reasons, the smaller of which is that I am starting high school. The other is that I am going to a public school. I have been homeschooled since the age of eight, so this is big transition for me. I do know a couple of kids from the golf team, though, so I won’t be totally lost. In fact, I am looking forward to school! That brings my post to a close. I have not been writing as many posts as usual, but I hope to keep on top of that in the future. I have a backlog of material, so there will be no shortage of new subjects!   -Birdie

Hello, and welcome to my fourteenth post! This post delves into the ethics of playing golf—but not following the official rules. It’s a subject that I’ve often thought about and have a lot of material for. This post will concentrate on mulligan shots—when I take them, in which circumstances I take them, and, most importantly, why I take them. A mulligan is a “make-up shot” one takes after a bad shot, but is not counted on the scorecard. (Interesting but unrelated: mulligan also means a stew made from odds and ends of food.) This is technically not allowed, but it is very common. When my dad and I play at Civitan,   we both take a lot of mulligans. However, we only take mulligans WHEN we have made sure that we’re not holding up the pace of play. For instance, yesterday my dad and I took a lot of mulligan shots because the course was next to empty. We commented on this to the guy in the pro shop, and he pointed out that it was sweltering. We agreed. Then we played another nine holes. Everyone takes mulligans for different reasons. Everyone has a different idea of what is sufficient cause for a mulligan, too. Some people take a mulligan shot and then play their first shot. Everyone has a different set of CIRCUMSTANCES in which it is okay to take a mulligan. An example of this my dad and I. He takes mulligans when he chunks it, and I take mulligans when my ball goes in the wrong direction or when I want to experiment with an error in my swing. Last but most importantly is WHY I take mulligans. This probably varies so much that I’m not even going to speculate on what goes on in other peoples’ heads. Figuring out what I’m thinking is hard enough! To begin, I’m going to go back quite a few weeks ago. I was golfing with Dad. It was another day when the course was spectacularly empty. I was feeling kind of tired—not up to my normal regime of mind tricks. So when I hit a bad tee shot, I just hit another shot. I didn’t want to risk ending up in a bad mood because I felt I wasn’t golfing well, and one way to avoid that is to prove to yourself that you can hit a good shot. With an extremely generous helping of mulligans, I managed to get a final score of thirty-six, which is quite good for me. So, in some situations I take mulligans to maintain a positive attitude towards golf. Another situation is what happened yesterday. I have been working on changing my swing and have been making slow and patchy progress. Yesterday, I hit the ball correctly about half the time and incorrectly the other half. I hit mulligans to practice and build my confidence in my new swing. I was unsure whether or not mulligans were ever acceptable until an instance earlier this summer when I finally flat out asked my coach in which situations mulligans were okay. He told me what I already believed: It’s perfectly fine to take mulligans when you’re practicing as long as it doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s game. Don’t you love it when it turns out you had the answer all along? -Birdie  

Hello, and welcome to my thirteenth post! I have a topic that is very dear to me this week—the San Juan Open. I have volunteered there for the past three years, and I have learned a lot and met wonderful people. This post will focus on how I’ve grown since I started volunteering and persevering (my favorite core value!) even if something scares you. To begin, I’ll go back about two years to a meeting with the volunteer coordinator (VC) for first time volunteers. For privacy’s sake I’m not going to use any names, but the VC was and still is a very kind man whom I like very much. He told us that we’d be ball spotting and asked us if we had any questions. I (and I assume the other kids as well) had no idea what ball spotting was, but I was initially too shy to ask. But as the seconds ticked by, I realized that nobody else was going to say anything and that waiting until the actual day of the Open to ask would be even more awkward. So I asked, “What’s ball spotting?” At that, the other kids seemed to relax, and the VC gave us an in-depth job description. (The ironic thing is that I ended up with a completely different job!) After that day, I was finally convinced that people really don’t bite if you talk to them! The San Juan Open is held at the Country Club, and since my family does not have a membership, that was the first time I had ever been to the Country Club golf course. I was quite intimidated at first and had no idea where anything was. Since I was taking an afternoon shift, there was already quite a lot of activity. As my mom put on my sunscreen, she gave me a pep talk. Then she left me in the care of the VC and went home. After a delicious lunch, I was shown what to do. I quickly got the hang of it, and it’s my favorite job there to this day. As a result of my great experience in 2015, I was much more confident in 2016. That year, I took a morning shift and an afternoon shift. The morning shift went great. I have two memories of that shift that make me feel happy to this day. One is of saying hello to a pro who was passing through and asking him how he was. He told me that although he was not playing very well, he was happy to be there and to be playing. I thought that was pure genius, and took it to heart. It is one of the main ideas behind my mental game. The other one is of working up the courage to thank one of the people maintaining the lunch buffet for all that she was doing. What makes this so memorable is that a couple of minutes later I heard her telling someone that that was the first child volunteer to speak to her all day and how nice it was that I said thank you. However wonderful the morning shift was, the afternoon shift was a disaster for me. I have mentioned that I get chronic bloody noses in a previous post, and shortly into my shift I got one. I hurried to the golf shop to find someone to tell so they could find someone to take my place. The first person I ran into happened to be a nurse, so she got someone to take over my job and then helped me with my bloody nose. After a while, it stopped and I went back outside. However, it started again within minutes. Again, it stopped after maybe ten or fifteen minutes. At this point, the VC had been notified, and he told me to sit inside where it was cooler and advised me to call my mom. I did not want to leave, so I told my mom what was happening but did not ask her to pick me up. Then I went back outside. It started again. At this point, I was miserable and the VC was getting very worried. On top of that, my bloody nose was intensifying. When it stopped, I told the VC that if it started again I would tell my mom to pick me up. I hadn’t been outside for three minutes before it started again. Dejected, I went back to the women’s locker room and called my mom. I felt so humiliated. I suppose this is an example of perseverance, although possibly not wise use of it! This year, I volunteered again. One reason I did so was so that I would not be remembered as the girl who got a bloody nose that one year. (That’s not really a good reason.) I also wanted to volunteer again because I love doing it. However, I was terrified of getting another bloody nose. Although bloody noses themselves don’t scare me, getting one in public kind of does. It stresses me out when people are disgusted or worried by them, and the more scared, stressed, or worried I am, the more likely I am to have a long-lasting nosebleed or to have one start in the first place. Anyway, I was worried about getting a bloody nose at the Open, so I kept getting bloody noses in the days preceding it. That, as you can imagine, did not calm me down. Last Friday I got up early and headed to the Country Club. In the car on the way there I got another bloody nose which, blessedly, stopped as we pulled into the parking lot. There were no reoccurrences. I had a wonderful day helping out and hanging to with friends of mine who were also volunteering. The next day the same thing happened. I got a bloody nose shorty after I woke up that stopped very quickly. Then I went to the Country Club and had another great day. The only problem was that one of the flags used to signal other volunteers mysteriously disappeared halfway through the day! This year was very different from the previous two years of volunteering at the San Juan Open. Since the Farmington High School golf team holds practices at the Country Club, I could find my way around easily. I was more confident in my knowledge of the jobs I had to perform, and I wasn’t shy at all. I learned a lot about how to handle myself in situations like the Great Bloody Nose of the 2016 San Juan Open. I’m certainly not the same kid I was two years ago! Also, I’d like to think that I showed perseverance by volunteering once again. I’m sure I’ll be at the next San Juan Open, too!   -Birdie

  It seems like I wrote my last post just a couple of days ago—but it was actually over a week. Which, I suppose, could be thought of as a couple of days. Anyway, I’m happy that I am writing this post (although I’m pretty hot and tired), so let’s get to it! Today was the first day of First Tee classes, so I just got home from the golf course. Since both my brothers are taking classes, we were at Riverview for around five hours! (That’s nothing compared to this coming Wednesday—my brothers and I have classes all day long.) There were seven people in my class today, and I was the only girl! Most of the golf classes I’ve ever been in have been all or mostly boys. I wonder if that’s how it is in other sports? I don’t really mind being the only girl in my class—some of my best friends are boys that I met in golf classes! In class today we played six holes from fifty yards in or closer. Our “par” was three. I got two threes, but completely cancelled them out by getting two fives. The ironic thing is that I got fives on the holes where we were closest to the green. Since I got fours on the other two holes, I averaged… four! This means there is room for improvement. Yay! More golf! Just thinking about picking up a golf bag makes me want to sleep for a week! I may have spent one hour and fifteen minutes golfing, but I spent more than twice that time sitting on the patio behind the Riverview pro shop during my brothers’ classes. This is what my sister (who doesn’t golf) does all summer. I’m lucky—I actually have a reason to be there! Sitting on the patio can be boring, but what with schoolwork, books, and the practice greens, it can also be downright enjoyable. One thing that’s always fun to watch are the chicks that live in the right-hand corner of the patio. They are Say’s Phoebes, and there are four in the nest. I probably would have written this post on the patio to pass the time, but the computer I’m typing this on is pretty new, and my mom won’t allow it out of the house. I mostly practiced putting and chipping (badly). Also, if any of the Riverview faculty are reading this, a hammock would be much more comfortable for reading than the picnic tables. I am so happy that golf is happening once again. I’m always sorry to see it end in August. I’m certain that this year will be just as wonderful as all the ones preceding it. I hope to come up with a fun subject for next time by this weekend!   -Birdie

  I almost forgot to write a post this weekend! I just remembered earlier today. As you can see, this post is about the importance of practice. I feel a little hypocritical writing this, because I haven’t golfed since last Tuesday. (I’m writing this on Sunday, June 4.) Tuesday was the first PGA Junior League practice! I, sadly, have aged out, so this year I’m acting as a mentor. I also golfed on Memorial Day and Saturday. Saturday was uneventful, and I’ll be focusing on Monday in this post. On Memorial Day, I went golfing at Riverview with my dad and a couple of his friends from work. I don’t think I had been to Riverview since the high school spring season ended! I was pretty unprepared. Civitan is a great course, but it’s not a great place to practice your long game (which, as it turned out, I really needed to work on). I struggled with my three fairway driver the entire time. Also, the greens were way faster than I was expecting. I came away with a total score of 123 (which is a really cool number, but not one you want as a golf score). The incredible part is that I got four pars! The other incredible part is that I got two twelves! (The luckiest part is that my finger wasn’t stung by a wasp untilI I sunk a par putt on hole 18!) So, I was rather out of practice. I count myself lucky that I didn’t go over double par! The facts that are relevant to this post, however, are the placement of my pars and twelves. Since I recycled the scorecard, I don’t know exactly which holes I got pars on. I can say that my first par was on hole twelve, and my twelves were both prior to that. Therefore, my game drastically improved as the day went on. The longer I played, the more I had practiced, and the more I practiced, the better I did! So, practice makes better. (Not perfect. The perfect score in golf is eighteen, and that’s impossible for me at this time.) This is where I’m going to bring one of the First Tee’s core values, perseverance, into it. Needless to say, I was pretty discouraged when I strayed into the double digits. I kind of wanted to start over on hole one and play hole one over and over again until I got a par. (I like things to be perfect and consistent. Twelve was not perfect, and I wasn’t about to make it consistent.) So, since I couldn’t do that, the circumstances forced me to persevere. I didn’t really want to persevere at the time. It’s just that that was the best choice. After all, I have experienced enough to know that the next hole I played, chances were that I could do better. After employing all my mind tricks, I regained a positive attitude. By the end of the game, I was very pleased with how everything had turned out. In conclusion, the more one practices, the better one gets. Also, keep trying. You never know when things might take a turn for the better. This may seem like a happy ending, but it leaves me with one fear: Will I always need to play nine holes before I can do well? That sounds exhausting! -Birdie

  Hello! My apologies for missing last week, but I was out of town at a First Lego League tournament. This post is going to be about sportsmanship and, more specifically, how everyone seems to have a different view of what it means. I’ll be using the Lego tournament I just mentioned as an example. At Lego tournaments, core values are an important component. Each team has a meeting about core values with a panel of two judges. Each meeting includes a question-and-answer section. Our team answered the first couple of questions easily, but then one of the judges asked a question that stumped us. FFL, instead of using the word sportsmanship, has trademarked a word that is a combination of cooperation and competition. Because it’s trademarked I can’t use it. However, since it is remarkably similar to the word coopetition, I will use coopetition in its place. The question that confused us was (I’m paraphrasing) “What’s the difference between coopetition and sportsmanship?” For a little while there was no answer. We just glanced at each other, hoping that someone else had a reply. Finally my sister (who is also on the Lego team) said something along the lines of “In sportsmanship you shake hands and act nice and in coopetition you really mean it?” (However, she tells me that she was actually thinking, “They’re the same thing.”) That, apparently, was not the answer he was looking for. After two more answers from different members of the team the judge finally accepted an answer. It was remarkably similar to previous answers. The only major difference was that the last answer said that in coopetition you learn from each other. I probably would have taken months to figure it out, because I believe that learning from each other is part of sportsmanship! At first, I wondered if my idea of sportsmanship was a golf thing, but my Lego teammates (who play soccer, rugby, and tennis) told me that the reason it took them so long to come up with an answer was because they do learn from opposing teams, and they do usually mean it when they smile and shake hands. I gathered, however, that they learn mainly by observing the other team and not by talking wth them, so I guess golf is kind of special because you have the opportunity to openly converse with your opponents. One can ask questions, give advice, and simply have a pleasant conversation. For the record, the First Tee’s definition of sportsmanship is “observing the rules of play; winning or losing with grace.” My meaning is more along the lines of “follow the rules and help others follow the rules, win and lose with grace, and be polite and genuinely friendly.” I suppose I have my coaches to thank for that! The question asked at the tournament is still baffling me, so if you want to, please leave any insight and your definition of sportsmanship in the comments section. -Birdie

  I can’t believe another week has passed already! It has been very full, so I have not gotten out to golf. I was going to write about The Importance of Practice, but it seems hypocritical to do so when I haven’t practiced. Instead, I’ll save that for another week. Today, I’m going to write about the heat and how to deal with it. For a girl that almost lives at a golf course all summer, I have a very low heat tolerance. I would rather hike up a mountain in knee-deep snow while wearing sneakers (I have actually done this) than have to sit in a car with little air conditioning for an hour. I will never understand how I became so enamored with golf as to melt myself playing all summer. However, since I am enamored with golf, I have learned some ways to stay alive (if not exactly cool) in summer weather. First of all (and most important of all), bring water. Bring water even if where you’re playing has water stations. You never know when you will be wandering through the bushes looking for your ball and become desperately thirsty. It can be a lifesaver—possibly literally. Staying hydrated prevents headaches, nosebleeds (in my case at least), and more serious problems. Sorry, that was kind of preachy and boring. My mom and our First Tee coaches give me speeches just like this all early summer. Some more unique ways to stay cool include wearing a wide brimmed hat and a “coolie.” A hat with a wide brim means that you don’t have to wear sunscreen (this is important to me, as my mom buys all-natural stuff that is hit or very, very miss in being comfortable to use) and it provides a portable bit of shade. It’s not a conventional golf style, but it works for me. I’m not completely sure how to explain what a coolie is. My grandmother made some for my family, and they’re essentially a tube of fabric filler with water absorbent “beads.” They might be polymer? Anyway, they hold water and you can knot them around your neck. After soaking them in ice water, they keep you really comfortable. There is a downside, however. People will ask you why you wear a scarf in the summer. My family also has a particularly beloved tactic that is incredibly simple: we get wet. We live near a river, so on days that we can manage it, we go wading. We bring some watermelon, shoes that won’t fall off or get stuck in the mud (that was a sticky lesson to learn), and clothes we don’t mind soaking. However, now that Farmington Lake has a section to swim in, we mostly just go there every afternoon. A summer chore is watering the garden. We have to do this every day, and it gets really hot and unpleasant. My siblings and I hose each other off after we finish and that makes it a lot more bearable. This works especially well if your hose has a mist setting. A proactive way to deal with summer heat is to get used to it. My mother makes sure that we are ready for the heat by waiting as long as possible to unpack the summer clothes. She actually looked up acclimating to heat. It takes ten to fourteen days, and you do it by spending a little while longer outside each day (and drinking lots of water). My family does do pretty well all summer, and we’re always grateful for our summer clothes! -Birdie