2020 sucked. 2021 was supposed to be our year, and yet here we are. Golf courses are too crowded, COVID variants are spreading, and you still feel disconnected from the people you want to spend time with. If you love to spend time yelling at kids to get off your lawn, here's your recap of golf in 2021:
Remember when you didn't have to plan a tee time weeks in advance to get a tee time before twilight? Those were the days. Want to play on Saturday morning? You better be jumping on those times as soon as they're released. And forget about getting any sort of discount or special offer. It's a real shame all these courses are thriving and making money they can reinvest into the course.
Congrats, you finally were able to snag a tee time for the weekend...and now you're stuck behind a group of hackers that can't tell the difference between a sand wedge and a shovel. Even worse, imagine this scenario: the only course available was the local pitch-n-putt and now you're watching some parents let their kids take 82 shots to get to the green. The audacity of these people to introduce the next generation to the game at a beginner course. I'm all for growing the game, just not while I'm on the course.
Here we go again...another winter of no rain means another year of limited water supply. Surely golf courses will be on the chopping block with all the water used to maintain them, right? At the very least, we're bound to be paying top dollar for courses with dead greens, sketchy fairways, and barren tee boxes. Seems like a steep price to pay for a year-round golf season. What's the point if we can't even enjoy the golf?
Anyone else struggling to get out of the trap without giving yourself a perfect lie because there's no rakes? Or found their number of putts skyrocketing without the ability to say "that would've been in without the pool noodle" or "I can't putt with the flagstick in" or just taking two putts on every hole to "avoid reaching into the cup"? Maybe all these rules were made up just to mess with our games.
Maybe you were too busy with other responsibilities to play golf this year. Maybe you spent too much time thinking about all the things about golf that made you upset. Maybe you just forgot to renew. Whatever the case, you've been missing out on tracking your Handicap Index, keeping your score history, and perhaps most importantly, a connection to your local golf community. If only there was a way to rectify this...
Sure, there will be always be things that will annoy you when it comes to golf. But unless you're a total curmudgeon or your sarcasm detector is defunct, hopefully reading this list made you realize that these are mostly petty grievances keeping you from enjoying the game you love. Golf is thriving and there are more groups than ever waiting for you to join them on the course, so lighten up a bit, Ebenezer, and spend more time focusing on the things to be grateful for.