The air this morning is sleety, ground is wet and visibility is low. Such mischievous conditions continue for the last three days. Then comes a sunny day but it is too windy to golf. Though the weather is not a dependable thing, the fact that it hinders my game is disappointing. The last few days I wasn’t doing much but playing the role of lazy bum with a sleepy head. Neither of those things attracts reading or writing. I either sleep or eat. What a rotten routine of raccoons.
A trip to North America was never as boring as this one. COVID-19 is more to blame than anything else. No golf, no window shopping, no nightlife, no outdoor activity, and no boat cafes. Just Uber Eats, Netflix, Amazon, contactless deliveries, home cooking, and an occasional round of icy golf. How can one enjoy golf when most of the fairways are wet, bunkers are choked, water hazards are frozen and greens are bouncy. It makes it advantageous only in the sense that the ball doesn’t drown. Ponds pound the ball like Rojan Rondo. Sometimes it rebounds it back to the ground. Mostly it sits there on top of the iced hazards laughing at you comically. As a winter golfer, you are packed like a delivery item and wrapped like a USPS package. Your nose is running faster than your tee shot. Your ears shimmed like an Amazon box. You are wearing gloves on both hands while the mound is too frozen to tee. You till and till, till it tilts.
Yet, for hardcore golfers, it is a great privilege to play in winter. Only a few clubs can afford to operate and fewer golfers can dare to challenge the freezing winds. I have had the advantage to play on frozen fairways of North America as well as in melting Middle Eastern heat. It takes some degree of derangement to find enjoyment in the freezing or burning points of a sport. And lunacy and craze are two major ingredients that make me who I am. A one-track-minded extremist. A fanatic golfer.
“Be wild and crazy and drunk with love, if you’re too careful love will not find you.”
Rumi
It may be cold, it may be hot or it may be pleasant. Golf adds a lot to the hour, to the environment, and to the ambiance. It adds to the mood and to life. It pronounces pleasure and announces attraction. It grooms glamour and entices entertainment in your schedule. Golfers like me seek refuge in write-ups about golf at times that they can’t get to the golf course. I am tired of reading about golf techniques and how to swing and what stance is? Everything written on golf out there is either coaching or marketing. Through my blog, I try to add a little literature, a story, an essay, and some light stuff. After all, a mind at peace stimulates.
Stimulation ignites passion. Passion makes you practice. Practice increases your confidence. Confidence makes you perform. The performance breeds victory. And victory yields rewards. Success is the best source of fulfillment.
I hope the rhythm of these lines will bring an inspired golfer to the course. Wishing you a great round in golf and life. Good luck!
“For this game you need, above all things, to be in a tranquil frame of mind.”
-Harry Vardon
Credits
YouTube
By
Ahsan Jamil
Golfer, Blogger, Entrepreneur, Author, Poet, Wanderer, Photographer
Email: Golfaij@gmail.com
Website: Golfaij.com
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