In 2017, I played 104 rounds of golf and that doesn’t include the times I went out and played 9 holes. If we add those in, the number of rounds is probably closer to 200. How do I know this? My pyscho ass recorded every round of golf I played that year in an excel spreadsheet. If my math is correct, I played exactly two full rounds of golf every week for an entire year. That is how babies are made!
Fast forward to 2020 and thanks to the Reagladon and COVID 19, I have played less than 10 rounds of golf this year. That’s devastating. Don’t get me wrong, Reagan Jean is the best thing that has ever happened to me, but she doesn’t exactly allow me to leave the homestead twice a week for five hours at a time. Golf as a dad is a TOUGH SCENE.
In 2017, my typical weekday started on the practice putting green at Carmel Mountain Ranch Country Club. I would get up early in the morning, practice my short game and putting from 6 until about 8, and then I stop and grab a Carl’s Jr. breakfast burger before heading in to the Oval Office. Side note – those bad boys are the equivalent of breakfast cocaine. On the burger, you get hash browns, bacon, cheese, a burger patty, and some ketchup. All for the price of $4.39. Try finding a better bang for your buck anywhere. Spoiler, you cant.
I would work my day job until about 5 or 5:30 and then I would head straight back to the golf course. Depending on the time of year, I would get in 9 or 18 holes before it got dark. At this point, I should mention that my wife is a saint, because I don’t know anyone who would allow their partner to go chase a little white ball around every night after work before coming home for dinner. If there is a secret to my success in golf, it is repetition, and a supportive honeybunch.
On the weekends, I had recurring game on Saturday and Sunday mornings. We would tee off around 7:30 and finish around noon. In the early years, when my wife had to work weekends, the standing 7:30 tee time was the first of two rounds I would play that day. After playing in the morning, I would grab lunch and had over to Carmel for round two. This cycle of golf after work and 36 holes a day on the weekends went on for a good majority of 2017.
As life goes on, other things become more important than a little white ball. At the end of 2017, I proposed to Meg. The beginning of the end. Sorry honey.
In 2018, I ONLY played 76 rounds of golf. I’m not pointing fingers, but I think a special someone stopped having to work weekends and got tired of the two a days. If I could take it all back, I would have never suggested my wife take that job with Petco… I’m kidding. Mostly.
2019 was a huge year in my life. Megan and I got married in April of 2019 at, you guessed it, a golf course. On the morning of my wedding I played one of the worst rounds of golf in my entire life. I should have seen the signs right then and there. My life was about to change again.
The week before our wedding, my wife and I got to talking about starting a family and she was emphatic that she wanted to wait a couple of years before we started trying. Our first daughter Reagan Jean was born 3 days after our first anniversary. GOOD TALK MEG, SEE YOU OUT THERE!
Which brings us to 2020. On Saturdays and Sundays, I try to sleep in as long as I can before my wife needs the reliever out of the bullpen. Whereas, I used to spring out of bed at 6:30 so that I could make it to the first tee at 7:30, now I am battling to sleep in until 8. Mornings in the Grahl house consist of a lot of baby farts, and dancing sloths. LITERALLY. Dancing sloths… If Fisher-Price designs one more high-pitched singing stuffed animal, I am just going to snap.
The rest of the day consists of playing hot potato with the baby. My wife and I take turns wiping butts and rocking the baby to sleep. The closest I get to a golf course is when I take the dog out in the back yard. While Vinny takes care of business, I take a few swings with a golf club.
There is a brief window between 3:00 and 5:00 before we have to make dinner that I could sneak out and go hit balls. However, the hottest time of the day in Austin, TX lands right in that window of opportunity, and I just do not have it in me to go stand on a range sweating my balls off just to get a little practice in. So, I decide against it and then end up regretting that decision every Monday morning when it’s time to go back to work. It is a viscous cycle and I always lose.
That’s #dadgolf for you in a nutshell. If by some miracle my daughter happens to want to play golf, I can start playing again as a way of teaching her the game. By then, I will probably be worthless on a golf course, but I am the only dad she has, so I will just have to do. Please pray that Reagan loves golf, or I don’t know what I am going to do with myself.
Until next time,
Enjoy the chase! Or better yet, enjoy thinking about the chase!