Getting into.....GOLF!?!?

Anyone who's ever played golf with me knows one fact: I am really bad at golf.

However, my friend Anthony works as a financial manager at JW Marriott at Starr Pass here in Tucson and is encouraged to take advantage of the resort's golf course.  He's allowed to invite up to three others to join him for free, which is an amazing perk to have as part of his job!  Since late 2015, we've been going almost every weekend to take advantage of free golf and I'm very lucky to be invited.  Anthony had never really golfed before he got this job, so it was nice that we both started out around the same level.

The golf course at Starr Pass is arguably the most challenging in Tucson.  There are 27 holes (3 sets of 9 where you'll play 2 of the sets in a round) and the course spans through several mountains and washes so there are many chances to go out-of-bounds if you have a bad hit.

Because I've been going almost every week (even during the hot summer days and yes, I'll actually get up early if it's to go play golf), I have an innate desire to want to be better at any sport I'm playing regularly.  I had a set of old Powerbolts that my friend Matt gave me as a groomsman's gift some 7 years ago.  They were an entry-level set of clubs, rightfully so because a bad golfer doesn't need good golf clubs nor was I using them that much.  My first step in getting into golf was to invest in a new set of nicer clubs.  There's a TaylorMade Outlet Store that just opened up in Tucson where Anthony purchased his clubs.  They run older models from a few years ago, but everything is still brand new.  I was able to trial a few of their irons and ended up liking the Speedblade set.  The set of irons (includes 4I, 5I, 6I, 7I, 8I, 9I, PW, AW) ran for $300 new.  I also picked up an SLDR Driver and a Daytona 12 Putter.  Because the outlet store is new since 2015, they were running a special where almost everything in the store was 25% off.  They also had an additional promotion for "buy one club, get one half off."  Altogether, my first purchase was in June for $440.

I would continue to play every Sunday, not really improving my game, but at least I had some fancy new clubs to swing with!  I also had bought some new golf shoes to go with my TPC Jasna Polana shirt and shorts that I got from being a groomsman in Chris's wedding.  For the most part, whenever we went to Starr Pass, we'd do a 2vs2 best ball.  Sometimes we'd take individual scores and for the most part I would hit around a 112.  Anthony can break 100 occasionally and Tyler averages in the mid 90's.

As I continued to play, I realized that my irons would not go far enough on some of these holes.  The internet says a 4-iron should on average go 170 yards and I could actually hit maybe 20 yards less than that.  However, some of these fairways still had 200+ yards to go to the pin.  Tyler and Anthony suggested that I invest in a fairway wood and hybrid, and after picking the brains of my elite golfing friends Matt and Chris, I decided to purchase 4 more clubs for my birthday in August: a 3-wood, a 3-hybrid, and a couple 56° and 60° wedges.  The promotion for "buy one, get one half off" plus an additional 25% off was still running, so I got the 4 clubs for $260.  Altogether, I now own a 14-club set of brand new TaylorMades and if you count the bag as well, everything ran me $800.  Matt claims this is the first sign of golfer's addiction, which is spending a pretty penny on a new set of clubs!

So now that I had the equipment, it was time to start learning to play the game properly.  Growing up, I had never learned how to play golf.  My dad never played and when I rarely played with my friends, I was not serious enough to learn the fundamentals.  While Anthony and Tyler are better than me, I wasn't sure if they actually knew how to play the right way.  I figured it was time to consult friends who were more educated or been playing for a lot longer than me.

Over Labor Day weekend, Matt met me at Top Golf in Scottsdale while I visited Lucky (who now works there) to help give me some instructions on posture and address.  I am a firm believer in the fundamentals of any sport.  I know from experience from other sports (e.g. basketball, bowling, and pool) that proper mechanics is very important if you want to improve the performance of your game.  Matt has been playing for 20 years and is really good golfer, so I tried to absorb every ounce of advice he gave me.  I've only tried my newly correctly swing a couple rounds out, but already I can feel a difference.  As you can see from the picture below, I' still have a lot of work to do, but before the lessons I would stand straight up and have my arms fully extended, which I now know is incorrect.

My goal is to get out there every weekend with Anthony and then every other week I'll try and play another course a second day in the week.  So we're looking at maybe 6 rounds of golf a month.  I've also been watching more YouTube videos and golf channel, watching what others do and their approach to what is a very difficult game.

I've definitely gotten really into golf lately.  Now that we're in the fall season, there'll be cloudy days where the weather is a cool 70-80° out and all I'll be thinking is "man, it'd be such a good day to go golfing."  Another sign that I'm getting addicted.  Hopefully if keep it up enough, I'll see improvement and not be so embarrassed to be out on the course with guys like Matt and Chris! :)