Boogie Golf

I've made a couple of references to this in past posts so here's the "rest of the story." From around March of 2000 through the summer of '06, I was what you would call an "avid" golfer. I played every Sunday morning and rarely missed. But towards the end of that time fame, the foursome I had played with started losing members due to transfers, moves, and an unfortunate death. That really took a lot of the fun out of the game for me. Also, I had become a swimming official and was spending a lot of my weekends on deck instead of on the course. I've played probably less than 10 times in the last two years, and my game has deteriorated accordingly.

Since I've been trying to adhere to Mark Sisson's "Primal Blueprint" philosophy, I've included long weekend walks as part of my exercise regimen. I got tired of walking around the neighborhood so I came up with the idea of "boogie" golf. I figured I'd rather spend a couple hours walking on a golf course than on concrete sidewalks. So I loaded five clubs in a cheap stand bag, grabbed a dozen balls out of my shag bag, and headed to the first tee at dawn's early light. I used a 7-wood off the tee because it's a fairly dependable club for me and I have a good chance of keeping the ball in the fairway. And that is an important part of "boogie golf" because the main goal is to keep walking. The formula is hit the ball, quickly pick up the bag and walk fast to the ball, and hit it again. If I do hit one sideways and have trouble finding it, I invoke the 20 second rule. After 20 seconds of looking, I drop another ball and keep going (thus the use of shag bag balls). I played twice and each time I finished just under two hours. I haven't played since the start of daylight savings time because the key to playing this way is to be the first one out in the morning. That's a little hard now that daylight starts so late but it will get easier as the days grow longer. And if nothing else, I can just go out and walk the first hole while it's still a little dark and start on the second. I'm not keeping score so it really doesn't matter. Actually I do keep score. 120 minutes from tee-off to making the putt on 18 is par. I'm -5 for two rounds.

One of these days, I'll get back to playing "real" golf. But for now I'm content with getting some exercise and enjoying those handfull of good shots that surface from time to time.