Sports have always been a very important part of my life. Even back when I was 2 years old, I was in tap dance. Over the years my interests in sports have changed a little, but from fifth grade through high school I was very active in basketball and volleyball. In order to be competitive in sports, I had to play these sports in the off season as well. As you can imagine, I didn't have much time left to try other sports.
One sport I always wanted to try was golf. I know watching golf on T.V. can be pretty boring at times, but I always thought it would be fun to be able to play a sport that didn't require you to be in a gym. If my high school had a girl's golf team, I probably would have made time for it; however, I decided it wasn't worth embarrassing myself in front of the guys team. I could have hired someone to teach my how to play, but since I'm a pretty shy person, I didn't feel comfortable taking lessons from a complete stranger.
After my senior year, I had a lot more free time. It was the first time I was going to have the entire summer without camps, open gyms, games, and practices. I was really looking forward to having this time to myself. I decided it would be a good time to try something new. Of course the first thing that came to mind was golfing. Fortunately, my boyfriend is a dedicated golfer, and he jumped at the opportunity to share one of his hobbies with me. He was really excited to get me golfing because he knew it was something we could do together.
I always imagined that golf was a hard sport, but I had no idea how hard it was until I was actually getting my first lesson. We were just out in the yard, and my boyfriend was trying to tell me the most important tips before I took my first swing. I started off just trying to perfect my swing because I wasn't comfortable enough to actually try to hit a golf ball yet.
After quite a few swings, my boyfriend finally convinced me to try to hit a ball. My worst fear was that I would swing and completely miss the ball because it would have embarrassed me. Unfortunately, I missed the ball a lot in the beginning. I think by the end of that first lesson I had only hit about 5 balls, and none of my hits were very good. I felt really discouraged at first because I'm not good at stepping out of my comfort zone when it comes to sports.
It took a couple weeks before I was able to connect with the ball regularly. Once I got comfortable with my swing, I decided to try to tackle an actual course. When I was out on the course, I realized golf was harder and more frustrating than what I thought it would be.
By the end of the summer I had improved tremendously, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. My boyfriend and I went golfing many times, and sometimes it went good while other times my temper got the best of me. Despite all the frustration, I really enjoy golfing, and I intend to keep playing.
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