Welcome to golf.
You will not be good.
This is not a judgment. It’s a schedule.
Your first mistake will be believing the driving range prepared you. It did not.
A driving range prepares you for a round of golf in the same way, your high school driver’s ed class prepares you for the Daytona 500.
Range balls are supportive. Course balls have goals.
You will arrive early and still feel rushed.
You will practice swinging while pretending not to notice people watching you practice swinging.
On the first tee, you will experience heat palpitations and your group will become silent.
A stranger will appear behind you, leaning on a club, witnessing your choices.
You will swing harder than you ever have in your life. The ball will dribble a few inches ahead, or, if you’re lucky, it’ll hit a nearby house. As a man, with our normal egos, you’d rather break a window 200 yards away, then to have a drive than can be calculated using a tape measure.
Someone will say, “It gets easier.” This is a lie told by kind people. Others will just let you sulk in silence. That’s what I do when playing with someone who is hacking at a ball like they’re trying to kill a snake, only to see it dribble a few feet away (the ball, not the snake.)
If you have a cart, you’ll figure out it’s easy to drive, until you forget to set it on park on #4.
You will step on someone’s putting line and apologize to a man who says it’s fine while internally thinking of ways you can be tortured.
You will forget which club you just used and pick the same one again out of loyalty.
You will search for balls that do not want to be found and kneel in bushes you do not own.
You will find balls that are not yours and briefly consider identity theft.
You will keep score until hole five, because after that, the numbers become embarrassing.
You will celebrate one good shot like you are some kind of stud muffin who is just a lesson or two away from joining the PGA Tour.
You will tell that story for years, or until people get bored with it, which will be in about five minutes.
By the end of the round, you will be tired, confused, slightly sunburned, and deeply convinced that equipment is the issue.
This belief will fund the industry, and you’ll return.
Not because it went well, but because something about it feels unfinished.
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