9,999 To Go...

I've noticed something as my game has continued to improve. Suddenly, I'm not one of the guys just hanging on in my local community. As recently as this spring I was one of the guys really hoping to pair up with a top player at Sunday Doubles. Suddenly, it isn't that way anymore. I'm still hoping to pair up with one of the other top guys, because that'd be a sure-thing win... but now there are people that actually want me as a partner, that are excited and hopeful when they get paired up with me.

I'm not the best disc golfer in my particular local community... There are three guys that I consider better than me, and there are probably five-six guys that I know I can beat on any given day. And as I've become a 950+ level player I've started to realize that I'm better than most of my community. This isn't shocking, because most guys that are over the 900 level can honestly say that they're better than at least half of the guys that hit the disc course on any given day.

But I didn't realize it before recently. Suddenly I'm at the point where I feel like if I just play every single round of golf for money, I'll come out ahead. Because there are only three guys that can beat me more than half of the time in my local community (and since a lot of local guys are probably reading this: Hoyle, O'Shea, Tipping). There are still those five-six guys that I know can beat me half the time, they probably know who they are. But everybody else? I'm going to win a lot more than I lose.

Maybe this sounds a little bit arrogant, but it isn't as though I think I'm amazing. There are still, probably, 9,999 golfers out there that can beat me on any given day. But it has to be some kind of decent plateau to suddenly have the confidence that I'm better than most people out there at the sport I've chosen to play. That if I play for cash all the time, I'm going to come out ahead.

Anyway...

I've noticed something else, the blog is probably helping my practice routine. Thinking that if I don't get outside and putt for an hour I'll have to feel guilty about it later seems to be helping me get on all the layers of clothing and drag the basket out from the snow piled around it. Helpful.



-Chris.