Golf anyone?

Andrew and I are taking up golf! Well at least the driving range is our starting point and then we will gradually go into playing a game of 9 holes and then graduate with playing a whole set of 18 hole golf! I do not know the proper golf lingo to type my story, so any golf enthusiast reading this blog excuse my rookie golf terms as I tell my little story about our new hobby. =)

Andrew started showing an interest in Golfing. He was recently in California for training, on his new job, and spent 2 weeks there. While he was there he played golf with a fellow trainee two different times and another time he meet up with one of his friends and went to the driving range to practice his golf swing. Andrew practiced his golf three times while visiting and came back home wanting to take up golfing. He had mentioned golf a few times before he left for his training and got me interested to try it too. Golf is now our new hobby to do together in Missouri.

Some of you are probably thinking, GOLF? I can’t picture you guys golfing? Me neither! But we are, and it is fun, and a good work out. Man I was sore the following day. At first I couldn’t figure out why my fingers, shoulder blade and waist line were all sore, then it dawned on me, it was because I went golfing and my body never twisted, gripped or bended like that before.

Last Sunday we looked online for a driving range near us and there is one near us, but with no golf course. At first I thought this sounds rinky-dinky, for not having a golf course too. Andrew reassured me that driving ranges are a place to practice your golf swing and are sometimes separate from the actual golf course. So we show up at the driving range and it is a rinky dinky place as I imagined. We went inside and there are 3 sizes of baskets to choose how many golf balls to play with. Then the lady says to pick out a golf club, they are $1 each to rent, Andrew asked if there was a full set of clubs to rent, to be able to try each club out. NOPE. You have to choose from this sad, little, miss match, pile of retarded clubs. We looked at each other, and we left. We went back home to find somewhere else, that was better organized and found one that was just a little farther down the road from the first one and went there instead.

This other driving range was a huge difference! Big improvement, I am glad we did not stay at the other place, because I wanted to get the full experience to practice from. This place had the same bucket sizes to choose from in ball amount but we did not have to rent per club, they were free to use. The clubs were all color coded by gender and youth, and we could pick out how ever many we wanted to practice with, and they had a complete set of numbers in their beautiful pile of golf clubs.

The driving range is a golf field set up with some flags to aim for and also with 100, 150, 200, and 250 signs measuring out how far we whacked our balls onto the field. (As I mentioned before, I don’t know the proper golf lingo) I think the numbered signs were measured by feet; Andrew and I were both at about 100 feet when we putted.

We are still new to this and for me it was my first time “golfing” where I was able to actually whack the ball. I grew up playing Miniature Golf, and only putted, or gracefully hit the ball with my club to let the ball roll gently down through a wind mill. Golfing is totally different, and I love it! I could actually whack the golf ball as a stress reliever, and give it all my might and watch it fly through the air landing at 100 feet. It was awesome! There was a golf guy two spots down from us, that we were secretly learning from, we would look at his posture and how he held his club, because he hit the ball way out into the 250 area and I could just tell he is a regular golf player. He made it look so easy.

I was trying so hard to get my ball to go beyond the 100 sign. My back was straight, feet apart, arms straight, follow through with a twist and whack attack! Sometimes we both were so focused on our posture and looking at the ball we would do what I call a ghost swing. We didn’t even hit the ball, the ghost swings would have been the best hits too, if we could have hit the ball it would have been a nice shot. I don’t know how the golf guy got his balls to go so far, but we will eventually get there.

The picture above is what I refer to as whack attack! Give it all your might and hit the ball 100+ feet in the air! I can't wait till we go onto the next level of actually playing golf at a golf course, I will get to drive a golf cart!