I’ve been playing golf for many years to varying degrees of success.  I have also been pretty lucky to be pretty closely involved in the “industry” (not to brag, no big deal) for quite a few years now through many connections and a couple of different websites.  With all of that, I occasionally realize one thing – I can still be pretty bad at golf sometimes.  I’m definitely a mortal human that more closely resembles an average-joe golfer and less like Rory at Bay Hill making a Sunday charge.

True, I may have a few impressive bombs off the tee during a round, or a long 3 wood to hit a par 5 in two, but don’t you worry…I’ll put up an occasional gem.  See the picture above.  What happened there you ask?  Your guess is as good as mine.  One not so fine day, I was playing a delightful 9 holes with fellow Hero, Tommy O’Connell.  After having a pretty good 8 holes and a solid day with a driver, I stepped up to the 9th tee.  The 9th hole at this course isn’t particularly difficult and there are multiple shot options from the elevated tee.  Since driver had been solid all round, I went with the aggressive “bomb it over the trees and catch where the fairway cuts over.”  See my “not-to-scale” but beautifully artistic sketch below.

With the best intentions, I swung away, but the end result is the picture at the top of this post.  I somehow topped the ball so bad that it drove itself straight into the ground two inches in front of the tee.  If you think that’s easy to do, go grab a large bucket of balls and try to do that for yourself.  I mean, I’m not sure I’ve ever hit a more terrible/ridiculous shot in my life.  Pictures just don’t do it justice.  That ball was buried a good inch deep in the ground too.  But this was a humbling learning moment for me.  While I do consider myself a better than average golfer, I’m still plenty capable of being bad at golf sometimes.  This is something we should always remember.  Hell, you see pros shank and duff every year!

Thankfully, I’ve been able to move on from this shot since, but the memory still haunts me.  As frustrating as shots like these are, they’re half the fun of the game.  I play to have fun and we were cracking up for about five minutes straight so mission accomplished.  It’s moments like these that are fun to laugh about at the bar after and keep us real.  Just remember, we’re all capable of the bad golf shot.  Some are just more embarrassing than others.

Do you have one of these stories of your own?  Share it in the comments below so we can all laugh about it too.