Golfing

H.G. Wells said "The uglier a man's legs are, the better he plays golf". I think I'm going to like this game.

Matt (cool picture on the right, check out that club!) and I played 9 holes Sunday morning at Victoria Golf Complex near the Brisbane CBD. What a great way to spoil a nice walk on a Sunday morning!

Golfing in Australia is great. From the kangaroos on the greens to the colourful lorakeets in the tropical trees, the fairways lined with Palms and the perfect sky, you really do get the feeling of being in a tropical paradise.

Of course, one should recall a few minor points about golf etiquette here:
1) rake the sandtrap for deadly snakes BEFORE you go in after your ball. This may prevent death or at least wetting thyself.
2) if your ball goes in the deep rough, a python has it. If the python doesn't have it, the python was killed by something worse than a python. Just take a drop.
3) aggressive spiders are attracted to shiny metal club shafts.
4) beware of man-eating crocodiles in the water traps.

and of course...
5) if your mate drops unconscious from heat stroke, notify the course attendant so the other parties will allow the doctor (a few holes back) to play through. Score a 2 putt on his card for the hole +1 for the inconvenience. Play on.

Is he kidding? Is he exaggerating for comedic effect? Are there really crocodiles on the course? You'll just have to come find out for yourselves.

On a personal note, I can honestly say that I'm as good a golfer now as I was before the accident... You can read into that however you want!

Walking the hilly course was a good test for me. I used a push cart for the clubs and by the 9th green I was only feeling a small limp coming on. The uneven terrain would have been a real killer about 6 weeks ago so it was a nice feeling.

As MJ told me a while back, golfing is a great way to test the full range of the leg. He uses it to judge his new fit when he has a major adjustment made or gets a new piece of hardware. I figured I'd better start getting a baseline.

I daresay my game may have even improved slightly since the last time I played. I had been a bit nervous that the twisting motion of the swing would hurt but it wasn't a problem.

I'm still hitting my shots straight and if anything, this has slowed my swing down just enough to take care of my slice. I just have to work on my aim! My follow-through still feels very natural but after video review I can see that it does look a bit off (but I don't have a video-baseline to compare to from before).

My short game still has a lot to be desired and unfortunately on that one, you can't even point to the leg! Lisa and I are going to need more mini-golf practice.

For my Uncles: no water traps near any of the tee-boxes so I still had my driver when we got off the course.



Nice course!