Baseball, Beer, Travel, and Running

I played golf this weekend for the first time in about three years. It was great. My shots were erratic. My chipping and pitching didn't exist. I shot a 115, but it was fun to play and I got to hang out with Tim Carter from Ask The Builder, who is someone everyone in Internet publishing could learn from. Tim gets the Internet better than most of these so-called Web 2.0 companies.

I didn't use a driver the entire round. For most golfers, this is blasphemy - a long drive is celebrated as a thing of beauty in golf. My driving was never outstanding, even when I was playing almost daily 10 years ago. If I don't line up my swing perfectly, I get a nasty slice with a driver. Rather than playing in the rough to the right of the fairway all day, I opted to tee off with a 4 iron. This worked well in general, but I'm sure I sacrificed a number of yards on every hole.

After the front nine, I asked in the club house if they had a 2 iron. I have a 2 iron in Seattle that I used to love when I still played regularly. The response from the guy at the pro shop and a guy standing at the counter was in unison, "Nobody uses a 2 iron." The compromise was this hybrid 3 iron/wood thing that has the face and loft of a 3 iron and a back like a 9 wood, which gave me a little more distance than the 4 iron, without any of the negative effects of a wood I was trying to avoid. I still like my 2 iron better.