Playing Golf with Sore Legs

On Sunday, December 14th, 2014 my friend Brian wanted to get out of the house and tee it up. On the Wednesday prior my lady friend absolutely annihilated my legs with an insane leg workout. On Friday and Saturday I could hardly walk and I was still feeling the effects on Sunday. Even though I was struggling to simply get out of bed, I wanted to play a round as it had been a full week. What happened was quite the story to tell.

There was a shotgun start after a frost delay so we had to start on #9 around 12:30. As soon as I hit my first drive I was concerned it was going to be a rough day. Although the drive went straight I still had a good 140 into the green when I usually have about 100. I proceeded to chunk the next shot. It was so difficult to keep my setup throughout the swing because my legs were so sore and weak. I ended up taking a bogey on the hole because of my chipping which made me feel pretty good.

After hole #9 I parred #10, #11, #12, and #13. Honestly, I was getting really luckily with some of the lies and a few thin shots. I double bogeyed #14 but really didn’t hit a bad sand shot after a terrible tee shot on the par 3. I finished our front nine, which was the back nine, with a 40. If I could just keep it together I could shoot a good score; maybe even get close to 80.

On my back nine, the real front nine, I pieced together a few bogeys and pars. Then, on #5, I hit a 60 degree wedge to within inches of the cup. It almost dunked on the fly for an eagle. Of course, I ended up two putting for a par. When all was said and done, I had a 41 on my back, the front, to post an 81. This is a tremendous score for me and I have no idea how I did it on sore legs. Maybe I need to workout legs prior to golf more often.

The best part of the story is the third nine we played which was the back. After parring #10, #11 and #12 I took a double bogey 7 on #13, which is a rather easy par 5. On #14 the true magic happened. This is a par 3 that plays about 155 yards. I knew I had to hit a good shot to avoid the bunker on the right. I ended up hitting it super thin, it never got above my feet and hit dead smack into the wooden sand bucket on the senior tees. It hit so square that it bounced straight back onto the tee box in which I was standing. I had about 145 yards into the green.

After laughing my ass off, without changing clubs, I walked up to it and proceeded to almost dunk it for a birdie. I was left with a six inch tap in par. Now that is how you play the par 3 #14 at Hasentree. It is a story I will never forget. When that nine was complete, I posted a 41 even with the double bogey on the par 5.

I was truly shocked at how well I played with sore legs. Most of the time I play with store muscles it is very difficult for me to get down to the ball and I thin a lot of shots. While I did thin a few shots today, I kept it together and posted some great scores. I am excited to get out there again as who knows what kinds of crazy shots are going to come off my club.