It's Always Nice to Blow Apart...

...and to be reminded by the golf gods of your essential frailty. I, and a new golf buddy, had arranged to play course #1 at Brookside in Pasadena. I had only played there once before and though I played well, I didn't care for the course. Still, I rather felt like I had vetoed one too many of his course selections, so I felt the need to go along and play the nice golf buddy. I had been playing really well until the day before the round and then my swing got that rusty lawn chair feel to it, really, all of a sudden. Scary. Both of the Brookside courses are located in a huge arroyo and requires a lot of local knowledge. There's a natural and manmade channel that cuts through the course in some very unfortunate places. Also, the bunkering (which I found no fewer than 5 times) can be brutal. In all, it's 7000 yards of pure fun. I had two Xs on the first 10 holes. Both were the result of finding the concrete-lined channel, which I now curse before all of you dear readers and the almighty. Then, a strange thing happened and I started to play better. A couple fairly easy pars and a near chip in for birdie, all with my rusty lawn chair swing. Best of all, I hit a lot of fairways on the back and kept up with the 20 something 2L at Columbia with the good swing off the tee. Great kid, actually. It turned out to be a five and a half hour ordeal, that ended well. I'm not at all sure I would play Brookside again (willingly). I still see the courses as badly overrated and overpriced. In the end, it's more than a little chilling to realize you can play that poorly and out of nowhere. And it's pretty sweet to pull out of the kind of nose dive that years ago would have knocked me even further off my feeble game. Getting old sucks, but growing up (a little) doesn't.