One Year Later: The Handicap and the Ego (Part II)

This essay (split into two parts) is a follow-up to a recent article that detailed my first time shooting an even par round.

My first even-par round occurred in July of 2022, giving me a whole revolution around the sun to comprehend the context and build on the lessons from that magical day.

So here I am to share with you the whirlwind that was my most recent year of golf.

Part II – Chasing the Handicap

Happy New Year!

I began 2023 by shelving any swing-related practice, but that didn’t mean relegating the idea of golf altogether. I wanted to carve out time to analyze, in a calm and nonjudgmental manner, what happened during this plummet from grace.

How did a mid-70s scorer who had control over his game become a hacker? How did the guy who prided himself on two years of devoted play and practice become no different than your buddy who plays five times a year?

I thought it was most important to find the root of the frustration – why this poor play wreaked havoc on my emotions. Turns out that my golf ego, in alignment with my identity, is tied to my scores and handicap. Therefore, this undoing of my identity had become a very unsettling and dissonant feeling. I needed to dissociate scoring from this identity.

I also learned that this ego had disallowed me from separating my two on-course selves – my “practicing” self and my “ready to play” self. Back in November and December, I was trying new swing techniques and should have treated my play like a pitcher treats Spring Training; Admitting that some margin of failure is inevitable in the pursuit of fixing a skill.

On the range, it feels great to practice because any failure to launch won’t penalize me. But on the golf course, if I hit a ball out of bounds, it leads to a double bogey. Meaning I’m unfortunately already halfway to my handicap…maiming that ego of mine.

I reflected on my response towards playing poorly, finally seeing how this anger was preventable. It had culminated as a snowball of frustration, building upon itself with exponential detriment.

Perhaps I would’ve been best served to reflect on this frustration a few months prior because then I could have avoided this unnecessary spiral. It would have behooved me to compartmentalize the frustration into separate domains: 1) the frustration of my play regressing and 2) the frustration of, now knowing what I need to do, not being able to execute.

Unfortunately, I had compounded the frustration and lumped it as an overarching “frustration towards golf”. This discombobulated headspace led to an all-encompassing anger towards golf which bred worse shots – leapfrogging from just the lousy driver to chunking irons, blading greenside chips, not committing to putts.

Anger is truly a cloud for the mind, preventing me from clearer comprehension and a barrier from seeing any light.

This time of reflection where I let out all my insecurities, grievances and labels was much warranted. It can stem beyond golf but to other aspects of life. Whether one loses a job, gets out of a relationship, fails in areas one’s been accustomed to succeed… your identity of feeling king is shattered.

What’s wild is you still don’t know the power of time and resiliency. If you feel like you lost your identity, is this loss permanent? Could it be a temporary disappearance or a slump?

In this time of crisis, I let go of my ego – not just my golf ego, but my stubborn personal ego. By stepping out of my own head I was finally able to listen to what friends, dad, and my golf instructor had been telling me for months: “You didn’t lose your ability to play excellent golf. You just need some time off.”

Snowed out by a cold Denver winter

The January winter was brutal – one of the coldest in Denver’s history. During previous years, I was able to golf in 30-degree weather, but the relentless snowfall piled on, shutting down courses for weeks. Without the option to even contemplate playing, I was able to focus on skiing and other snow activities.

The harsh winter was a blessing in disguise because it took my mind off golf altogether. This put me in a placid mindset with an acceptance that once golf season approaches, I’ll revisit some of these ruminations about the state of my game.

A month later, with a current clearer headspace and without a fervent obsession, I was ready to plan a pathway to improve. Still shying away from anything relating to holding a club (lessons or hitting balls at the range), I purchased Arccos – a data feedback device that tracks your on-course shot dispersion and yardage, also functioning as a virtual caddie.

Enter mid-March and with hints of Spring around the corner, I start golfing again. Given my love of numbers and this desire to quantifiably track improvement, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I took up golf in mid-March not because the weather was necessarily nice, but because March 15 is the official start of the Colorado Golf Association’s season. In other words, my scores would officially count toward my handicap.

I now understood how the chase for a low handicap had eaten up an unhealthily large slice of the pie chart of why I play

Therefore, I began to switch it up – no longer playing from the back tees, but from the next tees up.

It’s worth noting that after my immaculate round last year, I began playing from the tips. Not just because I felt like my game at the time warranted it, but because playing from the farthest tees helps the handicap. It’s counterintuitive because the longer the course, the harder it should be to score. But my logic was if I shoot the same score from the tips instead of the up tee box, my index will go down 2-4 strokes. 

Playing the course at its most extended length was always about my handicap. But now, instead of acting from a place of “what will help me with the lowest index differential”, I targeted what will help me enjoy golf more.

With peace of mind on shorter holes, it was enjoyable to find my drive closer to the hole and have more stress-free shots. I was quietly regaining confidence in my game plus something about being on the same tee box as my friends provided more time for camaraderie, jokes, and ball-busting – harder to do that when I’m teeing off 40 yards behind them.

I was putting together good holes which turned into good strings of holes. There was a trend of playing a good first six holes or even front nine, only to falter after the turn. To prevent this dropoff, I thought about increasing my stamina — so I started lifting weights and running more.

I got in better physical shape and stronger back nines followed suit. Plus the analytics from Arccos were giving me guidance. By showing me that I was five yards shorter on average for all my clubs, I adjusted accordingly and hit more greens in regulation.

Playing closer tees and maintaining high willpower for all 18 holes – my scores were circling back to the ideal number. 37s and 38s on nine hole rounds; 78s and 79s on eighteen hole rounds. 1-3 birdies a round, 0-1 double bogeys.

Slowly but surely, by mid-June, I finally recognized the player from a year ago.

By realigning my identity and subduing my ego, I had learned to love the game again. Within all of golf’s turbulence comes reward.

Through this, I resurfaced as a great golfer again.

So there it is — the eventful, chaotic, whirlwind of a year since I shot even par.

The fact I had reached heaven only to come back to earth (with a pit stop in hell) taught me the correct approach to return to glory.

When you’re grinding to get to the top, it’s effort that matters most. But enduring lessons for sustained growth are learned through failure.

Having said that, I still wish this year didn’t have quite the oscillations of highs and lows. I would’ve loved this past year’s rounds to be a smooth voyage without a plot of riches-to-rags-to-riches.

I could have happily written this from an alternate universe, where throughout the year I remain a 4 handicap, deciphering some different morals along the way. Or perhaps I’ve become a scratch, competing in US Open qualifiers.

But no matter how good I can be, my understanding of golf is that you’ll go through streaks and slumps, with inconsistencies as rapid as one round to the next. After all, that’s why the USGA handicap comprises only 40% of your rounds (your top 8 scores out of every 20 rounds).

As I’m writing this in real-time, I check my previous article and notice I didn’t write the word “ego” once. Removing that word is symbolic of achieving my highest level of enjoyment on the golf course, which in turn will allow me to play my best golf.

I just need to do a better job of reminding myself next time I’m playing poorly, that it’s just a funk, not a permanent endgame. So long as I take care of my attitude and take responsibility for my practice, only my ego can get in the way of my potential.