I think I understand now why some people play golf. It’s probably the same thing that keeps me going back to the trap club.
Just as I know I’ll never be an Olympic-class shooter, most golfers probably have no illusions that they’ll suddenly be invited to play on the PGA Tour. So why bother? Why keep trying to do something you’ll never master?
I did some serious soul-searching after last week’s trap night. I shot terribly. The more frustrated I got, the worse I shot. I wasn’t having a whole lot of fun.
After I put the shotgun away, I sat down and thought about it. I realized it wasn’t the fact that I wasn’t hitting every clay bird that was bugging me. It was the fact that I didn’t seem to be improving that got my knickers in a twist.
So this week, when I went back to the trap club, I thought about my conclusions about last week’s outing. I tried to just take it one bird at a time, and it seemed to work. On the first round, I broke 24 of the 25 targets. I had a moment of disappointment knowing I was just one bird short of a perfect round, but I put that out of my mind and tried to concentrate on one bird at a time again for the second round.
I didn’t do quite as well the second round, but I only missed three targets. That was a total of 46 out of 50. That’s probably a heck of a lot better average than I have when I’m hunting, so I tried to think about it that way. And on top of that, it was a whole lot better than last week’s score, which I will not divulge at this time. Suffice it to say I was very disappointed in myself last week.
And that, I realize, is why I keep going back for more torture. Every week, I hope to do better than the week before. I might not succeed, but that just gives me more reason to try again the next week. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.
