A little package of goodness

A little package arrived yesterday in the mail that reminded me of an old passion that hasn't been getting much attention since I got on the bike. Golf.

My US Open tickets for this year's event down at Torrey Pines in San Diego arrived and I'm pretty excited. Three years ago I traveled back to North Carolina to visit some family that had moved to the east from out here in the west, and it just happened to coincide with my first US Open ticket experience. That year the wife and I left the kids with the family and did a day trip out to Pinehurst to view the second round. Pretty cool day, even if you take away the fact that we drove through the hometown of country music star Randy Travis.

So this year I received the same huge ticket allotment. Four tickets for each day; this works out to be 28 tickets in total. Now it's time to hit up friends and family first, then others to sell these off. I'm going to head down to SD to view the Monday practice round. I don't want to deal with the crowds later in the week, especially the throngs of folks chasing Tiger around the course.

In retrospect, I haven't golfed at all this year, and only played 3 times last year. Small amount of course time when you consider I played 32 rounds in 2004. I worked hard enough to get my handicap down to a 5, but for all the practice I put in I was never able to get it any lower. I attribute my lack of abilities to keeping the tee ball in play. Sure, I can bomb it 300+ yards, but you can't score well if your ball ends up out of bounds or 2 fairways over to the right.

But these days I enjoy my limited golf outings much better. My expectations of shooting a low score are non-existent and I truly enjoy the little things during the round much more. Like taking pleasure of knocking an 8-iron on the green, getting up and down from the green-side sand trap. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that since moving on from golf to cycling my health has dramatically improved. I was never "unhealthy", but when you consider I've lost 45 pounds over the past 3 years due to cycling, I think it was a positive change in passions. However, I do consider golf a sport...which is a post I'll explain in the future.