"I Swear!!!"

And yes I actually did...but let me explain myself. I decided to go out to the golf course today, and play nine holes, and that alone has made me swear(just a nice way to say I cuss sometimes).   

It's been about a year, or maybe a little less since I've played, mainly because my back has been an issue, so I haven't wanted to take a chance of getting out there, and then pay the price of being down in my back, especially while I was still gainfully employed, but now that I am retired, that excuse is out the window.

Since retiring I've been doing a lot of walking, which I figured would help with my back problems, and I really think it has....so today I though I might as well test it out....Mistake!

I knew things were going to be bad from the get go...first its 95 degrees, and here on the coast of Texas that probably equates to about a 102 to 104 heat index...but hey whats a little heat...I can take it.

Second, when I get to the first tee, there are three guys that just teed off, so I'm thinking, well maybe they will ask me to play with them, but no....I hear, "you want to go a head and play through", which means they would let me go a head of them. Now I can hear you asking "whats wrong with that", to which I answer ....nothing, if they already hadn't teed off.  So now I have to get up there, with basically no warming up my old extremities, tee off and rush to get the heck out of their way.

Luckily I didn't make my self look to bad with three sets of eyes on me when I hit my first shot... I didn't even need a mulligan. I slammed it down the right side of the fairway, and gave myself some false hope that maybe laying off for all that time might have actually been good for my game...Wrong!

So now I'm in rush mode to hurry up and get far enough down the road so that I'm not going to hold these guys up...I mean they were nice enough to let me go in front of them, so again without giving much thought to my second shot I take the club back thinking I'm going to have two good shots in a row, and then I mightily end up topping my shot....false hope gone...reality setting in, so  now I really get in a hurry to get  down the fairway, and out of sight. 

My third shot was good, it got me close to the green, so I wasn't feeling too bad, and as I looked back, the kind threesome were just pulling up to there first shots, so I knew I had time...but the tone had been set for the rest of my round........hit the ball, rush to make a shot, hit the ball rush to make a shot...are you getting the picture?  It's a mindset that is instilled on the first tee, and every golfer knows that once a precedence has been set for the round, you sure as heck can't change it. Well not unless your Tiger Woods, or someone of that level, and your swing guru is following you around the course reminding you that... YOUR'E RUSHING!

Well needless to say the first hole was a double bogey disaster, but I'm thinking, Ok Jim next hole is yours....dang it wrong again!  I'm still in hurry up mode, and there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it except to just hope that the Golfing Gods would have mercy on me , but somehow they didn't get the memo, and the second hole is a carbon copy of the first.

How about the third hole you ask?  I promptly hit my tee shot in the water, so now I'm hitting three off the tee box...damn golf is fun.  Somehow though, my third shot is a really good drive hooking just right with the contour of the fairway, and amazingly with good distance....Hope springs eternal, I'm back in the game....Uh no, I'm not.  I stand there gazing, and by the looks of it I'm only about about a good nine iron away from the green, so I grab my trusty club, take a practice swing(I have time now because the guys behind me haven't even gotten on the second green yet), and prepare to hit the shot of my life.  If only that was what happened...instead I spray the ball to the right of the green, and in doing so I feel something in my right knee pull, and now instead of my back being out of whack, it's my darn knee...go figure.

Do I continue, or should I just call it a day?...Well to me the answer is obvious...Go Big or Go Home! At this point I've already screwed the first three holes on my own, and now my knee is giving me fits so shoot, I have the perfect excuse, and I'll be darned if I'm going to waste it. Finishing this round has become a quest for me, even if I have to call 911 on my cell phone to come, and pick me up on the ninth green. I Will Finish !

I won't bore you with the rest of my round. I would love to tell you that I shot even par for the rest of the nine, but that would be a lie, and we all no golfers don't lie, we just exagerate.  So lets just say I finished...yes hurt knee and all I made it through to play another day...

The good part of this little golfing story is my back held up great...the bad part is I will be walking around like Grandpa Amos for a few days  until my knee starts to feeling better.  I figure that I can use this for an excuse to get out of a few jobs around the house, or at least until I can walk good enough to get back out, and play another round, because like I said at the start of this sad but true story... It's my back that's bad...not my knee...and for whoever came up with these feel good slogans such as "60 is the new 50", evidently has not made it into their 60's yet!