As temperatures start to improve and the calendar turns to March, anticipation builds for a new golf season that is now only weeks away. Time to roll up those basement putting mats and head out to the course to see if indoor practice can finally translate into holing more putts. Or maybe that simulator work has ingrained a solid and consistent swing that will hold up over the course of the year. But even if you didn’t touch a club over the winter, there is still the hope and optimism that comes as the days get longer and the weather warmer that this will be the year.
This will be the year you shave several strokes off your handicap, break 90 or 80 consistently, master the sand game, putt like Spieth, make a hole in one, etc. Maybe you did manage to get a few rounds in over the winter, but they didn’t really matter with winter rules, temporary greens, less than ideal course conditions, etc. But as the Tour heads to Sawgrass and the swing to Augusta, the new golf season for all of us is here and with it the belief that this will be the year.
The optimism of a new season is one of the things that I love about the game. While my handicap has been dormant like the fairway grass since November, the slate still feels wiped clean for the new season. Scars and bad memories of last year’s skulled bunker shots and flubbed chips have faded and been replaced with, likely, misplaced and temporary confidence. But I enjoy looking forward with the belief that this will be my best golf season ever.
Last year, having not played for a few months, I was fortunate enough to find a warm early March day where things were slow at work (coincidentally on my birthday) for my first round of 2021. I played 18 with a friend and rode my anticipation of the new season to breaking 80, something I usually manage a few times a year but do not do on a consistent basis. Unfortunately, after that, the rest of my golf season was unremarkable, as my handicap didn’t improve but instead went up by a couple of points, and that March round was my lowest of the year. I recently scanned through my scores for 2021 and noted that the only one other time I broke 80 was in November in Florida, so a perfect bookend to my season. (As an aside, since I haven’t opened it since November, I had to re-download the handicap app on my phone to look at my scores.)
But this year will be different. This year, my best score won’t be at the beginning of the year, but I’ll progressively get better. Goodbye to posting scores mainly in the 80s (all of my handicap rounds were in the 80s last year aside from those two in the high 70s and one at 90), as this year I’ll move the bar to consistently posting in the 70s. Along with this, my drives will go straighter and longer, my GIR will improve, I’ll make more putts, lose less balls, etc. Or maybe not, but at least my mind is in the right place on this cold February day. That’s because, hope does spring eternal, especially on the golf course.
But for everyone, I really do hope this is the year. Because why not? That’s the allure of the game and the opportunity presented by the new season. Embrace it and good luck on the course in 2022.
