Let me start by saying I would love to hear how each and every one of you got into golf. The four of us here at I’D Golf all have a very similar story: we were baseball players our whole lives (and a couple other random sports mixed in here and there) and we didn’t really start golf until after we finished high school. From there we each explored golf in our own unique way. Today, I’m sharing with you my golf quest. So when you finish reading, please leave a comment with your story!
My first set of clubs
My personal story begins with me playing my VERY first round of golf less than a month after I graduated from high school. I ended up using a set of clubs that were probably as old as I was and were probably meant for a 13-year-old kid. Needless to say, everything about that round was ugly! One of the guys that got paired with us told me I needed to go out and get a starter set of clubs if I wanted to see any kind of improvement. I did that the next day. While I finally had clubs that fit me and were from this century, sadly, that didn’t improve my game.
I played with that set of clubs for the next few years, taking advice from people I got paired up with on the course and then practicing what they taught me later on at the range. One year, after I broke a couple of my cheap clubs, I started saving up for a set of new irons. I ended up buying the Callaway X20s on sale and the next summer I finally took my first lesson. Turns out there was a lot that I still didn’t know about golf. After a couple lessons, I got my swing down to a point where I was at least swinging more like a golfer rather than a baseball player. I got better that year, although not drastically better. I would still slice the ball then duck hook the ball, I was very inconsistent. I started to watch more professional golf thinking I could learn by watching. I was able to learn a little more about the theory of the swing and the thought process when approaching your next shot, but it didn’t make a drastic difference in my score either.
Trying to improve
I was always trying to find ways to get better. Watching videos, watching the pros, playing more but what I didn’t realize was I should have practiced more. I spent so much time at practice my whole life during my baseball days that all I wanted to do was go out and play. Plus, unless you had a coach there with you, practicing doesn’t always help. I finally decided to try going to the range a little more before I played a round. Slowly, I started to see an improvement in my game. I tend to base my game off whether I beat Derrick, Zack, and Craig at the end of the round. I knew I was getting better but so were they. I was on a quest not only to beat them but to be better than them, every day, every round. What I have learned since then, is that that’s never the case with golf. Once you think you have the tools in place to piece together a solid round, you end up struggling with one aspect of your game. Yet, you make a good shot or drain a tough putt and that brings you back for the next round.
The ebb and flow of the game
Golf is a game where you can win The Masters one week and miss the cut the next. It is a game that will always challenge even the best golfers in the world. Today, I love watching golf and trying to pick up things here and there from the pros. Even though I am almost 30 and will never make millions of dollars playing golf, I am on a quest. I am on a journey to be the best golfer out of the I’D Golf group, I want to win our infamous Dick Out Cup for once. I want to finally get a hole in one, shoot under 80. The list goes on and on, it is eternal. But the truth is, I know I will probably die before I achieve all my golf goals. And that is the ugly truth!
