My Precious

Why do I still have my golf clubs? I don’t play golf anymore. I haven’t played in almost three years, but there they are; staring at me from my closet. I was getting dressed this morning and noticed the bag of wrenches taking up a bunch of very limited space. I should just throw them into the back of my truck and sell them to Play it Again Sports. Then maybe some disadvantaged kid can get a decent set of golf clubs for a discount. I quit golf because I was headed down a dark path, and the cons seriously outweighed the pros. I started playing golf with a group of guys when I was at the largest brokerage house in the world. I’m not mentioning their name because I hate them, and their current woes make me laugh. We would go out on Saturdays and play a round, and see how long we could keep up a beer a hole pace. This was fun. The trouble started when I decided that I needed to get better. MJ got me golf lessons for Christmas one year and my game started improving, and by improving I mean that I at least knew what I was doing wrong. Golf and I were never meant to be together. There’s absolutely no aggression in golf, so it has to be manufactured. This is why all golfers bet and/or drink when they play; they have to keep themselves interested. Well, four hour drinking sessions just lead to DUI’s and I hate losing money, or anything else for that matter, so I needed to sharpen my game. One day, while trying to sharpen, I had a little melt down. I was on the driving range hitting balls. I started with my sand wedge and moved down a club when I hit three in a row the way I wanted to. It was a beautiful Friday morning and I was alone. Since I was alone I didn’t need to check my emotions. I was swearing like a hyper-active kid with Tourett's. Golf is a game that requires patience. I don’t have a bunch. Professional golfers are so mind-numbingly meticulous because they have to be. I just want to hit the ball as hard as I can. Everything was going well until I got to my driver – the infamous 1 wood. Going from my sand wedge down through my 3 wood took about one and a half buckets of balls. I went through four buckets of balls and a few spinal disks trying to hit three balls straight with my driver. I can hit my driver straight as long as I don’t swing too hard, but I can’t help swinging too hard. I tell myself to relax and let the club do the work, but I can’t, not three times in a row. This is how we got to the bottom of the fifth bucket of balls. It was my last ball. I was determined to hit it straight. I didn’t hit it straight. I sliced it into the woods because somewhere during my downswing I got the urge to hit the ball hard. I lost my mind. I threw my driver as far as I could. I kung fu’d my golf bag. I turned around and saw a little old lady who was ninety if she was a day staring wide eyed at me doing my Chernobyl impression. I decided that was rock bottom. I retrieved my driver, picked up my bag, I left the ball buckets where they were as an act of defiance, and I haven’t played since. I don’t miss it. Golf is expensive, time consuming, and frustrating. So the question remains, what the hell are my golf clubs still doing in my closet?