Driving Range Woes

Thank you all for your encouragement and support regarding my Ambien-filled collision with Claire's closet. You will be happy to know that I am now functional again and have seemed to tame the beast that is Daylight Savings. Unfortunately, Claire may still be a bit traumatized. Poor thing.

So how was your weekend? It is SPRING, peeps! Doesn't that make you happy? I finally feel like I can wear wedge sandals again. My shoe choice just exploded with possibilities.

On Saturday a few friends and I went to the driving range. I love the driving range. And do you know why? It's because you don't keep score. That's right. It doesn't matter at all. And this is especially beneficial for a girl who quite frequently hits her ball into another fairway. Apparently other golfers don't appreciate this.  Snobs.

On this particular Saturday, my friends and I decided to place a little wager on who could hit the most consistent drives. This is not one of my strong suites because of my general lack of talent. However, I was game because the loser had to buy ice cream. And I wouldn't even know myself if I turned down ice cream.

So we set up our tees and started swinging. We were all doing amazingly well, hitting them consistently past yard markers and impressing ourselves with how much we had improved over the winter months of absolutely zero practice. But the longer we kept going, the more the pressure mounted.

Oh, the pressure. I almost couldn't stand it, I tell you.

Every time you got up to hit, you could just feel yourself thinking, "relax your arms, bend your knees, shift your weight, don't lift your foot, move your hips, don't move your head, don't close eyes, please God let me make contact, follow through, look for your ball, dance around like a lunatic and taunt the next person up."

Or something like that.

This went on for quite a few hits. Like I said, we were extremely impressive.

For the next drive, I tee'd up my ball and began to get into position. And it was at that exact moment that my friends began to tell me all the things wrong with my swing.

"Sarah, you shake your booty when you swing. I don't think that's normal."

"You are too far away from the ball, Rymer. Scoot up."

"Your club head is too open, close it up so the ball doesn't hit one of the cars in the parking lot."

"Yeah, my car. Don't hit my car."

I think I need new friends.

So I lined up, blocked them out of my mind, tried not to think about the tornadic winds that had picked up and threatened to throw my ball back into my face, relaxed my shoulders and swung.

The rush of the wind and the smoothness of my swing were magical. And then I looked for my ball...it had literally dribbled off of the tee. I could have thrown it further.

And with that, I lost.

Who in the world even invented such a stupid game? I mean, seriously. And don't get me started on ice cream now. Even though I lack almost all forms of natural skills and ability, I am blaming my friends. And the wind. And my pink golf club.