My first (and possibly last) piece of golf equipment

 

I took a couple of golf lessons this week. Christina was set to join me, but came down with a nasty bug on Sunday; hopefully she'll be back on her feet soon. One of my reasons for not taking golf lessons before is that I don't need another expensive, time-consuming hobby. Another reason is that, although I like the idea of continuing education, I am rarely home for long enough to take a class.

With the exception of Memorial Day weekend, I've been home for an extraordinarily long period of time, by my standards. So it seemed to be a good time to fit in a golf class, offered through the Prince George's County parks department.

The first class was fun, partially because half of it consisted of whacking the ball without great concern for accuracy. At the end, though, I had one question for the instructor. "What am I doing wrong if skin is coming off my hand when I hit the ball?"

"Nothing," replied the golf pro. "You'll develop calluses. Or you could get a glove." A $10 glove seemed a reasonable precaution to prevent further erosion of my epidermis...well, it ended up mitigating it, at least.

Today, I dragged myself down there (I have a bit of whatever's laid Christina low), got a glove, and spent 40 minutes hitting the ball. Apparently, the pro's criterion for ending the lesson is the second visible lightning strike. By the end of that time, I was fairly consistently hitting something that looked superficially like a golf shot. (The alternative being the errant shots my classmates were frequently dribbling past my feet.)

So I had fun. I'm not sure I'll pursue this past the four lessons I have remaining. On the other hand, if I had a club, I could visit the driving range from time to time...