Happy Hump Day.  There was a time when I would hit golf balls every day.  If I wasn’t playing golf I would be on the practice range hitting golf balls or at the very least practicing my chipping in the back yard.  In the winter time I would putt almost every evening downstairs on the carpet to a variety of targets.  I was obsessed with golf and about getting better.  I watched golf on television, read two monthly golf magazines and watched the Golf Channel religiously.  There was also a time when my mood (or how I judged the day) was a reflection of my last golf game and how good or poorly I had played.

I have little if any athletic ability.  But with a lot of practice and many lessons from local PGA pros I was able to get my handicap down to a 9.  My goal for years was to get to a single digit and I remember very well the day I put my score for a round in the computer at the pro shop and it gave me my new handicap of 9.1.  Wow! I was on cloud 9.  It’s just a matter of time I thought until I’m a 2, or a 1, or dare I even think about it, me being a 0 handicap.  Well that never happened.  I would bounce between a 9 and a 12.  When I was at a 12 handicap I was unhappy and when I was at a 9 handicap I was unhappy because I could not get my handicap any lower.  No matter how hard I worked at it.

Then I started working out-of-town.  My work started getting in the way of practicing.   Playing took a back seat to advancing my career.  My game suffered a lot and my handicap started heading North.  It was also about this time that golf stopped being fun.  In fact it got to be a lot of work.  I can remember sitting at the breakfast bar on a Saturday morning watching the weather radar hoping that it would rain the game out.

Finally I took a demit from the Country Club I belonged to because it didn’t make sense to pay a lot of money to do something that was no longer fun for me.   I would still play occasionally and would play in events, but no more than 10 to 15 times during the season.  The last three years I have played no more than 2 to 3 times each year.  Yesterday was my third time playing this year and the first time this year playing 18 holes.

Photography has always been a part of my life and at times a pretty important part especially when the kids were little.  I never really worked at it or tried to improve because I just enjoyed taking pictures. I always received a lot of satisfaction from photography but it always took a back seat to other things.  Then in 2000 I bought my first digital camera.  A 1.2 megapixel point and shoot camera and it opened a flood gate of enjoyment for me.  To be able to see my images as soon as I took them and then to be able to manipulate them in Photoshop was the icing on the cake.  It was such a fun time for me of exploring and learning new things.

However it was not until I stumbled across Scott Kelby that I really got serious about getting as good as I could be at photography.  Not for any accolades, or to make money at it (although that is a nice benefit) but just to be able to capture an image of what I saw or to create a piece of art from my imagination.  Photography lets me do that and it is very satisfying.  I never had any artistic talent but photography lets me express my vision and emotion through my images.

Why am I rambling on about golf and photography?  I’m not really sure other than as I was thinking about playing yesterday and it struck me as ironic how things work.  Yesterday was a perfect day (weather wise.)  I was playing with three very nice people who I count as friends.  I even had some good shots on the day (although not many.)  What did I enjoy the most.  The images I captured on the golf course.  I would have taken a lot more but they kept telling me to hit the ball.  🙂

Enough pontificating for one day.  Thanks for checking out the blog.  Enjoy your Hump Day and be careful.