Letters to Jim: Can't seem to make those golf lessons work.

Dear Jim:

            You know what is really hard to do? Concentrate on your golf lesson with tears streaming down your face. I told you I lost my swing. Wrong..It’s worse than that. I can't hit the ball at all! Well that’s not completely true. I can hit the top 1/16th of the ball 50% of the time. I shot 100 last week, the highest score I've posted since 1984. And no, it wasn't a fluke. I have been working up to it for the past five games.

            When I went to enter my scores on the handicap system I got a warning message to "step away from the computer. It is grounds for dismissal from the club to impersonate another member and falsely manipulate their data."

            Yesterday, when I was hitting my three wood on the range I dug a hole so deep that I sprayed three other members with mud and bits of grass. They asked me to leave. And I don't think they meant just the range area!

            What part of the game is gone? Well, my chip shots end up in either the trap, the water or over the back. I haven't hit a chip on to the green since June 3. My putting isn't working either since I'm so tired by the time I get to the green I can barely stand over the ball. Three putts are normal and that only happens with 10 foot gimmies on the third putt. What a mess!

            I finally tracked down the pro for a lesson this afternoon. After watching a few swings and bringing the camera in to play he asked me not to mention to anyone that he was giving me lessons. I whacked balls for one hour and we eliminated 7 things that I was doing badly. The other 5 things will require more work (surgery was mentioned more than once)  I don't know if I should phone in sick, wear a bag over my head or crash in to a tree on the way to the first tee. This is stress.

           Even more humiliating is that my wife is now out driving me, and scoring better. She suggested I start playing from the senior tees! If there was a compassionate God he would have someone shoot me right now.

          I haven’t given up completely yet. That will happen around next Wednesday. In the meantime don’t bother telling me how well you are playing…I don’t give a damn.

Bill Meder