When it comes to golf, I am what most people would call a hacker, or at least I used to be back when I played. There are a lot of us out there.
For any non-golfers reading this column, a hacker is generally someone, who isn’t necessarily very good at golf most days but still enjoys getting out on the golf course to play. We enjoy spending time with friends or family while knocking the ball around the course on a pretty day.
While we enjoy shooting the occasional good round and posting a lowish score – at least by our standards – we are not driven so much by our overall score as we are with enjoying the experience and getting away from the real world for a few hours.
The mental health experts, like my psychologist wife, Cecelia, might call it “being in the moment” or “mindfulness.”
Us hackers just enjoy those rare “perfect shots” we sometimes hit a couple of times each round on a good day. We joke those shots are what brings us back. After the round, we talk more about the one or two birdies we might get rather than the consecutive quadruple bogeys we had on the fourth and fifth holes.
Truth be told, the really bad days on the golf course are probably more effective at helping us forget about our real-world problems for a few hours. Some days, trying to hit the dang little white ball is so frustrating, you forget all about the real world for a few hours. (My fellow hackers out there and a few of you other folks out there know what I am talking about…LOL.)
As I wrote in the first paragraph, I used to be a hacker. I haven’t played golf in probably 15 years I would guess. These days, I just don’t have the free time to play. On the rare occasion I get free time, I just don’t have the energy to play.
The last few years, I have not watched much golf either, although I did watch the last bit of the final round at the recent PGA Championship, which was interesting.
Last spring, then News Journal Publisher Trevor Sherman began writing a golf column titled, “Par for the Course.”
Trevor, who had not played golf before, undertook the task of learning how to play golf last year. He took a few golf lessons and learned to putt using a putting green he had at home.
He wrote about his experiences in learning to play golf in Par for the Course in addition to writing about local golf teams and the accomplishment of the teams and players and a few other golf related topics.
Trevor has since left us to join academia at Eastern Kentucky University. He seems to be doing well.
As the only golfer left here at the News Journal, I am going to try and keep our golf column going this summer and perhaps beyond. However, I am going to need your help in doing so.
Do you know of a recent local golf team or player accomplishment from here in the Tri-County area? Have some information on a local golf scramble coming up? Do you have a golf related topic, you would like to see discussed in this column?
If so, please help this old hacker and e-mail me at mwhite@corbinnewsjournal.com, and let me know. Who knows. Portions of your e-mails might be included in a future column.
