The Mission

When I was growing up, golf was about my 3rd or 4th athletic pursuit, depending on the year and the season.  But as the years have gone on -- and my ability to keep playing baseball and basketball and the like has lessened -- golf has climbed steadily and taken the unquestioned "#1 sport" title in my life.  I was always a decent player, but as golf became the only thing I actually practiced anymore, I started to see my handicap fall relatively quickly from the mid-teens to the single digits.  Yet I still found myself playing with silly goals -- "I'm going to try to make eagle on this hole," and "I'm going to try not to hit it out of bounds here."  And, on the whole, my main goal for each round was to try to break 80.

At some point in time, I turned 30.  I guess that happens to everyone.  I didn't have a quarter-life crisis or anything like that, but I did have a golf revelation: I wasn't getting any better by just trying to break 80.  I needed a new goal, a real goal.  And the beautiful thing about golf is that there is a very specific goal built into each course, every round: even par.  It's right there on the scorecard.

So, since the start of 2008, every single time I've gone to the golf course my only goal has been to shoot even par.  I haven't gotten there yet.  I haven't gotten better than within 2 strokes 1 stroke.  But I will.

Of course in order to achieve any Mission there should be a few ground rules.  These are mine:

1. The round must consist of 18 holes of standard golf (i.e. no executive courses, no pitch and putts, and no out of season rounds), played by USGA rules.
2. The round must be played from a legitimate set of tees -- essentially either the back (blue) or championship (black) tees at most courses.
3. No mulligans.  Except maybe a breakfast ball on the 1st tee.
4. I will, however, accept gimme putts when appropriate.
5. Three putts are not acceptable.  (Well, they're allowed of course for the purpose of actually calculating the score.  But I can't accept them.)
6. In a case where the course rating for a set of tees is higher than the rated par for the course, should I shoot lower than the rating but higher than the par...well, that will stimulate some (personal) debate as to what constitutes par. 

Wish me luck.  I hope you enjoy reading about my progress as much as I will enjoy reaching the destination.