I am not athletic

Coming to grips with my own physical abilities

Reason number one why I am not good at golf is simple and it involves some self-awareness. While I have played sports my entire life, I am not athletic. To illustrate this point let me give you the highlights of my athletic career.

-Soccer: I was moved up from the 8th-grade team to JV because they were short on players. (I told myself for years it was because I was good.) I also had the goalie on my team kick the ball off the back of my head and scored an own goal. Still not sure if that was because of his impatience to clear the ball or the size of my head.

-Basketball: I scored 11 points in a summer league game, including a bank jump shot that was so horrible the ref turned to my team’s bench and said, “that was so ugly that it shouldn’t have counted”. At one point I was nicknamed “Hank” after Hank Gathers because I played basketball like I was dead.

-Baseball: I was hit twice in the thigh in the same game, it was the only time I made the paper for my baseball career. I hit .410 in Florida on a baseball trip my senior year, I am pretty sure that was strictly against JV competition.

-Hockey: I broke my leg backchecking in a beer league game as illustrated below by my friend’s daughter:

I have friends that have really picked up the game in the last two years and have watched them go from shooting around 100 to almost breaking par. They are natural athletes. I.am.not.

Not being an athlete is okay. I can’t do anything to change that. There is nothing I can do to become athletic. You either are or you aren’t.

However, the one thing I can do is improve my flexibility, power, and speed through training. I am going to have to outwork and outsmart the lack of natural ability.