• Return Hell
• Part 8 - Return
• Part 7 - Snorkeling
• Part 6 - La Gran Piedra
• Part 5 - Day Trip
• Part 4 - On again, off again
• Part 3 - Injury
• Part 2 - A Day in Paradise
• More under Adventures in the Caribbean...

• Despot
• Pat on the Back
• Detroit
• The Stupidness pool
• Photography
• Interestingness rant...AGAIN!
• Pizza
• Remembering
• More under General...

• First Tournament
• First Round
• New Driver
• November
• In The Zone
• Broken Driver
• Closing Stag
• Slump
• More under Golf...

Slump

So what is a slump anyway? Ever have one in anything you do? Why do they happen?

I?ve got one now, right smack dab in the middle of tournament season. My driver has gone south for the winter, & my putter is thinking about packing its bags & leaving too, although it might stay around for a while, just to piss me off. My irons just aren?t quite sure yet, sometimes they work, sometimes they don?t.

It all started with the round from hell a few weeks back. Things just stopped working for no apparent reason. They may start working for a while, and then decide to stop again with amazing rapidity. I can?t figure it out. The more I try & fix something, make subtle changes to get things back to the way they were, the worse it seems to get. The more I try & ?think? about how I did things when they worked, the worse things get. Today, a playing partner said that my left shoulder looked hunched up on my drives. News to me, but now I?ll think about it & probably screw things up even more.?

You know what? I think that THINKING puts you in a slump. The more you think about things, the more you tend to mess with what WAS working & make it worse. I guess ?if it ain?t broke, don?t fix it.? But what happens when it IS ?broke?? What do you do? I think (there I go again, thinking!) you have to play more, relax into the game & perhaps hit the range. The problem here is, when you work all day, you can?t do that. Well, I suppose you could, but at the expense of your domestic life. The problem there is finding the time to do it when you have other commitments.

Looking back at past scores over the last month or so, I have some pretty good ones, & some pretty poor ones. You know what, almost without exception the bad ones are centered on tournaments. Close to them, or during them. I don?t seem to have much of a problem when the damn things aren?t on my mind. On my mind?there I go ?thinking? again.

So, a slump happens. See what ?thinking? does! I must remember to stop it?DOH?there I go again!

Filed under Golf, Sep 21, 2005
 

NEXT ENTRY: Closing Stag - Added on Sep 24/2005