Golf on the last Sunday of summer

I'm not exactly sure why I've wanted to blow off golf since these days on Sunday it's just Scott and I mostly. The newest guy the was supposed to join us, Daniel, hadn't wanted to play in the last few weeks. Maybe that's just the me that interprets that as some sort of rejection. It had been pretty simple to integrate Greg into the group back in the day. And that mostly happened during the time I was transitioning from being a married man to boot. Maybe it was because I took such pains to get us a 9 AM reservation at Harbor for today and when Chris and Daniel bailed, I let go of that hard-to-get reservation too. And replaced it with Altadena. I guess it was just easy when we had Greg. And no jab on Scott but it is different when it's just he and I. But then again, maybe I should just focus on how I can make changes and tweaks with my manifestation skills and use golf as my feedback loop. On that note when I woke up this morning, I focused on merely trying to stay as relaxed as possible when I'm hitting the ball. I know I screw up and mishit when I tense up. Which is the big difference between when i hit off the tee, which is now consistently pretty good and when I hit off the fairway, which is currently consistently pretty bad. And so now I know I need to bring that same level of relaxation to when I'm hitting on the fairway. And no better course than Altadena to practice that since this is the place I became aware of the fairway "program". And so it was that we were paired with just one more golfer this morning, which was really as good as it gets. And when I made a par on the first hole, I condemned the rest of my game by saying "I can go home now I made my par". Why did I say that? Still I blasted my tee shots off Hole 2 and 3 as if they were Chris bombs. And both times I hit the fairway shot well short of the green. But at least I didn't whiff badly. I still got on in 3 on both. And missed par putts on both. That's another "program" I have to work on. Still I told myself I need to control my whiffs. And though I had one off the tee on the long Hole 4, I at least got to the green in 5 shots. And THEN I missed my putt yet again. On Hole 5 I blasted it clean again and got it short of the green again. And chipped past the green on the 3rd shot. No par there. I got it in 4 on the next short Hole 6. And blasted another great tee shot off Hole 7. Man if only I can hit my fairway shots as confidently as my tee shots. What would have to happen for me to do that? Again on that hole, short fairway shot. On in 3, miss the putt. Sigh. Same on 8. Bad tee shot with an iron, but on the green next shot, missed the putt. Score a 4. And on the last hole, I finally yanked it left so bad, I hit the green sprinkler duct on the 2nd hot. And yanked it left again out of the sand. I made it on in 6. Got a legit 8. Sigh. It wasn't a bad outing. It wasn't a good golf game either though. But I'm glad I came out and I glad I got to play golf. And I reminded myself now that Greg isn't around I think about all the games we used to have. Scott is still here. We can keep playing. And hopefully, we will get to for a long time to come yet.

It took me an hour to get home today. Why I chose the route I chose is beyond me. I think I saw the congestion on the 5 and stayed on the 2 and when it ended, I took side streets all the way home. That WAS a mistake. I mean I did get to the course on time this morning even though there was the same trouble spot on the 110N. Today, We got done at 10:30 AM. I finally got to Culver City using Venice Blvd at 11:50. And so I just stopped at IN-N-Out and got me a double double for lunch. Hadn't done that in a while anyway. I went home, ate my double double and watched the RAMS win a thriller at the Colts. And watched the Dodgers win too. All these helped soothe the ache of the last minute UCLA loss last night.  And THEN I even managed to get a 30 minute nap in as well. There was nothing pressing or urgent for me to do today. I'm caught up with the journal. Most of the grocery shopping was already done yesterday. All I needed to do was laundry and I was good to go. Which meant I could chill the rest of the day away. Which is exactly what I did. I made a sort-of homemade stew with taco meat and veggies I chopped up and then poured sirloin steak burger soup all over it. Made me some biscuits and with leftover rice I was full for dinner.  So full, I had to knock off early tonight. Weekend is over. This is also the last Sunday of summer as the fall equinox is the week coming up midweek. Time to start thinking autumn...