Mentally tough: Tiger and Rocco and (not) me

On the day of Tiger's fourteenth major victory, it was my third league night of the season. Far from a Tiger-like performance, today was yet another typically unique round for me.

With my three strokes handicap (for nine holes), I did at least win my match. In fact, I hit a few very decent shots, going one-under after two holes in fact. But after hitting what I thought was a good sand wedge into hole three, only to find myself in a hideous lie beyond the green, leading to a double bogey, the wheels somewhat fell off.

Literally, the SkyCaddie fell off. Or fell in rather. On hole four, a par five, I hit a perfect drive and left myself just a good three-wood to the green. But the lie was poor: in the "seam" of two pieces of recently-laid sod. It was a good enough lie for a lay-up with a mid-iron, but of course I pulled out the three wood and dumped the shot, only to learn later that our league plays winter rules. It ended up being a bogey, but worse, somewhere between my third shot and the next tee, I lost my SkyCaddie, and my mind was never into the match after that.

It's too late to make a long story short, but to wrap it up, after asking all the groups behind us if they found it, after borrowing a cart from the course to go back and look for it, after leaving my name and number at the club house, and after looking through my bag inside out, I headed home and called my wife, apologizing for my lateness and somberly telling her about my SkyCaddie.

When I got home, I decided to one more time take my clubs out of the bag, and tip it over. Sure enough, there it was: it was at the bottom of the bag the whole time.

I've been really trying to keep my mental focus sharp for a full round; even just nine holes. I never expected to have my mental toughness tested by the misplacement of a GPS gadget. Today, Rocco Mediate took Tiger to a 91st hole. Tiger of course won despite constant pain from his recently-scoped knee. For either of them, that's mental toughness I could only dream about.

But again, I won my match, so maybe there's some hope. I'm going to need all the toughness I can muster in the days ahead. To be continued...