Eye On The Birdie – Post #15 Why I Golf

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