Next 11 holes (even par)
This is good. I don't have my best stuff and I'm holding it together. Maybe this is how I get good, learning how to optimize the bad days.
Next five holes (eight over)
Evil Cameron (EC): I suck. I've laid the sod over an 8- and a 6-iron; show me a good player who does that. What a pathetic failure. And I don't even realize how good I have it. I'm blowing a golden opportunity.
Voice of Reason (VR): Calm down. Jesus. It's one round and it's 1,000 degrees out here and you've got a new grip and a new stance and new clubs. What'd you expect? A miracle? You've seen Tour pros hit it this bad.
EC: Regroup! Pull up on the rudder! Don't auger in!!! Focus!
VR: Regroup! Pull up on the rudder! Don't auger in!!! Focus! But if you can't I completely understand because you're fundamentally a good person.
EC: Schmuck.
VR: Am not!
So I might need a mental coach. I shall soon be calling one.
I've read that Tiger burns off bad rounds by jogging, so I went for a run on the beach, the hard and flat sand encouraging me to go for miles. Then I had to turn around.
Figuring the only way to learn how to score is to play, I decided last week not to decamp on a driving range but to play my way into this new grip and stance. I'm standing with a flatter back and more on the balls of my feet, and it feels like I'm much farther away from the ball. But I may need to change course and hit the range, because attaching my ego to these scores, these foul balls, may send my game into an Ian Baker-Finch death spiral.
I must remember the positives, that on my first day in Myrtle, playing seven holes at twilight, it took just three holes to make my first birdie. I must cling to my eagle on the par-5 8th hole at the Dunes the next day, my first full round, when I drilled a driver and a 3-wood to eight feet behind the pin and hit the putt dead-center. I must remember matching shot-for-shot a former Division I college player, who said I had a nice swing.
In my second full round (the most calamitous one) I was actually asked if I played in college. I made even my own jaw drop at a 5-iron out of a fairway bunker through a grove of trees and onto the green.
Many readers have blogged in support of my quest.
Chris: "I think this can be done."
Jay: "I am a 5 handicap. I think 0 is totally attainable. It's not flawless golf. You just have to be consistent enough to have 10 or 12 birdie putts and make two or three of them."
Dave: "I am a 38 year old 5 handicap that would love to be in your shoes. I know you can do it. I have chopped five strokes off my handicap in less than a year. I've taken plenty of lessons, have the best custom-fit equipment, and the only two things I've found that truly help are tempo and confidence."
I must not let everyone down. But one posting keeps coming back to me, from a guy named Rob Hums, because I've heard the same thing said of weight-loss and know it's going to prove true of going from six to scratch, too: "Those are gonna be the hard ones to get off."
