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Par for the course
Like many, I am fortunate to have a wide array of interests. From traveling to sports to writing and more, I rarely have a chunk of time I cannot fill with something I enjoy.
I love them all, but two of my interests I engage in with special passion. One, of course, is fishing. The other is golf. I’d do both twice a week if other things didn’t get in the way.
In pursuit of my fishing interests, I have been able to mix in a couple of other big interests like traveling and writing. Along the way, I’ve become pretty good at fishing – not the best, by far, but I feel like I can pretty much hold my own out on the lake.
Fishing gives me a sense of accomplishment. It makes me proud. While I fully realize there are thousands of anglers who can whip my butt, I consider myself someone who will catch them if they are out there to be caught. Helping stoke my fishing ego a bit is the fact I’ve won a few bass tournaments over the years.
Golf, on the other hand, routinely humbles me. I completely understand there are thousands of golfers who would love to card my scores, but my game is solidly in the bogey category. It’s never been where I want to be, so I really try hard to do better.
But something always happens. While I regularly make good choices on the water and chip in an extra bass or two compared to other fishermen, I blow opportunities on the golf course. I can skip a bait into a hole in a willow bush no bigger than a coffee cup, but I more often than not miss putts aimed at a similar size hole.
One golfer in particular stands in the way of my lifelong struggle versus the little white ball. She’s my wife, Barb. Simply said, she’s better than me. If we play 30 rounds this season, she’ll beat me 29 times.
Barb keeps me humble. Sometimes I blast a drive and get all puffed up. Then she steps up and pokes a good one out in the middle of the fairway, punches up a solid iron shot that rolls to within 15 feet of the hole and putts for birdie. I, meanwhile, probably will hit the second shot off line, flub the chip and two putt for bogey.
Just like that, easy as can be, she’s up two strokes.
This is why I fish. It’s me against the bass. I’m rarely down two strokes in my competition versus fish. Nor do I card many double bogeys out on the lakes and rivers.
On the golf course, it’s a different story. I was reminded of this last week when Barb discovered a sheet of notepaper on which we’d recorded miscellaneous outcomes during a few rounds of golf in Florida in 2014.
There were no scores on the notepaper, but it was obvious who’d had the better rounds. In the category of birdies, she’d logged eight to my four. In “balls lost,” my side of the ledger had 20 hash marks. Barb’s side had four.
And in the always-frightening “condos struck” category, I “won” with three solid strikes to her one. I also won in “balls found,” 17 to 4, but only because I was in the weeds more often than Barb.
Humbling.
So I fish. I’m out there this morning. Me versus the bass and a couple dozen other anglers with whom I’m confident I am relatively on par.
I think it’s going to be a good day. The fish should be biting and I’m pretty sure I’ll sack a limit.
But even if things don’t turn out, two things I know for sure: There’s no penalty for hitting it into the lake and no condominiums will get in my way.