I Don't Make Excuses

I don't want to make excuses for how I played golf yesterday but I do have a hangnail on my thumb. It didn't stop me from birdieing the par three 197 yard second hole (The Nightmare On Elm Street) that has a fairway about as wide as one lane bowling alley and features water all down the right side and a steeply rising hill to the left. No, it didn't bother me there. I merely placed my drive four feet from the flag and canned the putt. It did, however, come into play on most of the other holes as hangnails, ask anyone, are really annoying. Sure Tiger can get up and down at the U.S. Open with a blown knee, but how, I ask, does a a gimpy knee affect your grip? It's a hangnail that can truly hamper one's golf game and it takes a real man to play through that kind of excruciating pain. And I should mention the wind was blowing throughout the day. Everyone knows I don't have good wind karma. The other players, RTGFKAR, Woowwo Charly and I'm Never Using This Putter Again Johnson are not beset by wind demons and thus were allowed to play mostly without weather incident. I, on the other hand, had to deal with gale forces nearly every time I took the tee or lined up a putt. And there is the bad back thing, but I won't get into that since, as I've said, I don't like to make excuses. I probably should point out though, that many of the golf balls I brought along to lose were in less than perfect condition and I'm sure they were partly to blame for the erratic way they flew. My clubs too, are from a manufacturer, Head, noted for ski equipment and not fine golfing gear. On top of that, my breakfast, cereal with bananas, was clearly not the proper fuel for a golf outing. If I was into making excuses for my poor play, I would point out that the cart I was driving lurched repeatedly and a thing like that is very bad for the composure a golfer needs to be at his best. Worst of all were my playing partners who insisted on saying things to me like, "Whoa, that baby's deep into the woods" and things to each other like, "Nice putt, good shot" and "that's a par for me." Very disturbing that, but still, I'll tell you sincerely, I'm not going to use it as an excuse for this simple reason: I don't make excuses.