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.
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