Why I missed that putt

I missed an easy putt on Wednesday, as punishment Phil told me I had to go home and write a 600 word essay describing how I missed the putt. I had to do it though without using the words “the” or “ball”. Below is that essay.




Why I Missed That Putt

By

Bryan Van Diggele


It was a putt that never had a chance; it was going left as soon as I hit it. I had a good round but that putt was a bad miss. My final round score was nine strokes over par, if I hadn’t missed that putt, it would have been eight. When we approached hole three, which usually plays as a par four, it was shorted to a par three due to sprinklers being installed. They just picked a patch of fairway and called it a tee box. It wasn’t more than a pitching wedge’s distance now from tee box to green; yet I still managed to miss. I’m usually confident in my short game, playing a lot of smaller par three courses, I’ve had a lot of time to hone my approach and short recovery shots. Unfortunately on this hole you wouldn’t have known my short game was my strength. After hitting a not so good short tee shot, I didn’t hit my chip as well as I wanted either. I struggled with my short chip shots all day. I was on in two but had a lengthy putt for par. I misread how uphill my first putt was and didn’t hit it nearly hard enough. I left it short with about two feet to go to now save for bogie. I placed my marker down and picked up my Bridgestone Treo Soft. After taking a few steps back I squatted down, surveying this particular greens features. Fullerton has greens that I find tricky to read but it appeared to be sloping right to left and I was still going uphill. Put it about a half a cup right, hit it solid, and I should be happy. I picked up my marker, confident in my line. Stepping up to that putt I knew I could easily walk away with a bogie and still have a chance at my goal of shooting bogie golf for my round (Phil and I have been playing Fullerton golf course every Wednesday for the past month with the goal of shooting a round of bogie golf). This is a putt you have to make to be a successful golfer, foot and half to two feet out, you need to make these. I set up for this putt like I do every other putt. Get my grip, step in with my left foot, place my putter down, slide it towards me until it’s crisp white aiming line meets a Treo Soft logo with an arrow in front that now points a half cup right. My right foot moves into position, followed by my left. Once I’m set, I take one last look at my line, easy backstroke, no break in the wrist, and then a firm follow through. Only this time, I just pushed it left, plain and simple. I could blame an unrepaired divot or a stray leaf; I could even try and blame the wind. There are plenty of excuses to be made when you miss a putt from that distance. You never want to admit that you just hit a bad shot, especially with your putter, which has the appearance of being the easiest club to hit. But at the end of the day, I just pushed it left. Some times as a golfer you just hit bad shots. It’s better that I own up to the bad shots and learn from them, rather than try and fool myself into thinking it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t keep my putter on line and I paid the price, that bogie just became a double. Thankfully I didn’t miss my goal by a stroke, now I can move on and put that putt behind me.

Bombs bursting in air

As I moved my car late in the evening on 4th of July to a spot in front of Josh’s parent’s house I had to make my way through a neighborhood that strangely resembled a war zone. There were fireworks in the streets that I had to weave my car through, explosions in the sky rain down ash, car alarms going off from the concussions. Is it not the strangest thing that we celebrate our freedom in this country by recreating the hell of war? Shooting fireworks into the sky that resemble the “bombs bursting in air”, buying packs of explosives that resemble pipe bombs, and firing off guns into the air. Does anyone else find it strange that a day of celebration resembles news footage from the beginning of the Iraq war?

Bag of fruit and new couches

Are you in the area? I bought a couch today and it’s tied to the roof of my car. That’s what the text message I received one Sunday afternoon read. I tell you this because when she told me how cheap she had purchased this brand new couch, I asked where she got it because I too was in the market for a new couch. There was a miscommunication and I found myself at the Goodwill near downtown L.A. I walked in and immediately saw that there were no new couches, in fact, most of the furniture was pretty beat up. There was however the distinct smell of hot sauce in the air. I found the smell strange seeing how Goodwill is not like IKEA, they don’t have a restaurant inside. I turned to leave and then I saw it, the source of the hot sauce aroma. A mother and daughter standing at one of the used tables for sale, their lunch sitting on said table with a bottle of hot sauce for extra flavor. I thought immediately, “who the fuck eats their lunch in a Goodwill?”

Another conversation revealed that the place she had purchased the couch was actually just down the street from the Goodwill/lunch destination. A few weeks later she agreed to accompany me on my return trip to downtown to insure that I made it to the right place. I found a couch, but before I could purchase it I really needed to think about it, a couch is a big commitment, you sit on it every day. I sat on it, sat across from it, looked at it, asked what she thought, asked if it was comfortable to her, then I sat on it again, is this the couch I will sit on everyday for the near future? At the moment I finally decided to purchase the couch their internet connection went down, meaning they were unable to charge my credit card. I was given two options, wait for someone to probably reset a cheap Linksys router, which we all know can sometimes be a long process, they really do suck, or we could go to the bank about a mile away and get cash. We agreed that we would go to the bank, giving me more time to over-analyze my purchase. When we returned we realized that we were going to miss lunch and wouldn’t eat until dinner. The taco truck wasn’t serving food anymore but the fruit cart was and for just four dollars we purchased a quit large bag of mixed fruit. Now that I was paying for the couch with cash, I really had to look at it again, now the money was real, swiping your card is easy, handing over cash is something completely different. We sat on the chair across from the couch, looking at it one more time, both of us with a fork in hand, eating our bag of fruit, in a place just a block away and quite similar to Goodwill. I realized then, you don’t plan to have lunch at Goodwill, it just happens. “Who the fuck eats their lunch in a Goodwill?” Apparently I do.

Seattle

Two hundred photos and here are the thirty-four I liked. Enjoy.

Life is a mix tape

I can’t say I am surprised that music played a part in my trip to Seattle but I would have never guessed how significant it would be. Days before the trip I was browsing a friend’s bookshelf, as I will do if you have a shelf full of books, and I removed one and said I was borrowing it, she removed another and told me to take it as well. The book was Rob Sheffield’s Love is a Mix Tape, I was unaware that I had just met my travel companion for my trip. This book went everywhere with me, safely riding along in my jacket pocket. I read it at meals, at night before bed, while sitting in the park, reading Sheffield tell the stories of his life through the mix tapes that accompanied them. Walking another strange city solo, lost in thought, there was a low volume hum in the back of my head, songs playing, I hummed along to TV on the Radio, Helio Sequence, Temper Trap, Postal Service, and so on, my mind producing a natural mix tape soundtrack to my travels.

Brett Denner was performing at the Moore Theater, right next door to my hotel, the night I arrived. Unfamiliar with his music, other than something I read briefly about his new album, I decided I was going. I bought my ticket just minutes before the start of the show and found myself in the seventh row. The show quickly became one of the best shows I’ve been to in awhile, not because the music was exceptional but because of the experience. I had no expectations, no preconceived notions, I wasn’t waiting for my favorite song, and I wasn’t looking around wondering how these people could be into MY favorite band. The atmosphere was fun, Brett, a goofy redhead with moves like a hula girl, looked to be having a truly great time on stage and the crowd was as well. The energy was infectious and I was there until the final encore song came to an end and the band left the stage.

It felt like a sign when outside the Experience Music Project it read, Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses now open, just weeks before I had read a great article celebrating 20 years of Nirvana. The exhibit, covered in huge prints of show photos, fans at the stage singing along with Kurt, took me right back to my teenage years at similar shows. Hendrix occupied the room next to Nirvana, and while looking at both their original handwritten lyrics right there in front of me, all of Hendrix’s on hotel stationary, I couldn’t help but feel a connection. I sit here in my hotel room writing these words, picturing him sitting there in his, writing the words that would change a generation.

They say Seattle is the home of grunge, a city that birthed a new genre, changing the face of music forever, it now seems clear that this trip would be so influenced by music. Sheffield said love is a mix tape, that may be true, but after this trip I think life is a mix tape, so find your soundtrack.

South of the Border

As I wrote about previously, in April, I had the opportunity to take a trip to San Felipe, Mexico, with ANJ Motorsports. We headed south of the border for the CODE San Felipe 200 off-road race. I showed up for the trip with a backpack full of cameras and the hope of being able to piece together about five minutes of footage documenting the adventure. With the help of a few others getting some key shots (Phil missed his calling as a Director of Photography) and some shots of the race “borrowed” from the CODE website I had more than enough to put something together. Once it was roughly laid out I was shocked to see it was somewhere around thirty minutes long. I took the knife to it and massacred it into the fourteen minutes and nine seconds you see below.

Enjoy.

Happy Mother's Day Mrs. Patridge

One of the great things about the abundance of terrible reality shows is that we get a glimpse into the lives of some wonderfully trashy people. Audrina Patridge, former star of The Hills, now has her own reality show focusing on her and her family. Audrina’s mother is quite the whitetrash treasure. On the first episode I watched, Audrina took a trip to New York with her mother and sister, upon arriving her mother wanted to start drinking. Both daughters told their mother that it was late and they all needed to be up early, so trying to be responsible they suggested they go to bed. Mom didn’t like this suggestion, mom wanted to party. They told her that it was 10pm New York time and she replied by saying that she was still on California time and therefore, “it was only like 5 o’clock”; apparently they didn’t teach time zones in the trailer she grew up in. After watching another episode it is clear that she is a close rival of Dina Lohan who appears to be pushing her kids down the road to disaster, to their credit they are fighting her every step of the way. Kudos to you Audrina, for turning out as close to normal as can be expected with a mother like yours.