My Get Well Course

I’m an itinerant golfer. Lacking both a home course and a group of regulars, I’ll play a dozen different courses over the passage of a season (I’ve played seventy different courses in my “career”), choosing one or the other as the urge strikes. Sometimes, I’ll just head out early in the morning in a random direction and play the first course I find with an open slot (you can do that in Michigan, where you can’t drive fifteen minutes without hitting a course). I like variety.

But when my swing goes awry, there’s a place I return to to get it all back together. I think of it as my “Get Well” course.

Get Well isn’t fancy, doesn’t have a practice range, and conditions are … well … highly variable. But there’s something about it that brings out the best in my game. When I can’t find a fairway on the road, I’ll go to Get Well and hit every one. When my putting is off, Get Well gets it back on line. When I feel disjointed and awkward, my swings on Get Well groove.

It’s all in my mind, of course, but golf is after all a mental game. I think Get Well is just friendly enough, and familiar enough to take off all the pressure. I nearly always find a friendly group there to join. In fact, the players at Get Well are without a doubt the most easy going I’ve ever met.

My swing is off this week. I’m heading to Get Well tomorrow.