On Finding the Fun in Golf (Again)

Even if you’re just casually online these days, chances are you’ve seen this trend: Not proud of it, man enough to say it. I’m not on TikTok and have tried to minimize my time spent doom-scrolling on other apps, but I’ve got something I’m ready to share.

Not proud of it, man enough to say it: I ran away from golf this year.

For the last few years, I’ve been riddled with some unflattering insecurities that bled into my enjoyment of playing a game I love. Evening jaunts spent racing the sunset and early-morning day starters on the course weren’t fun or relaxing anymore. They were stressful. I was so divorced from the game I loved that I bought a kayak to reclaim those moments of zen. Time spent on the lake is a lot more fun than pumping balls into ponds (or people’s backyards). But last week, with the help of some lifelong friends and total strangers, I rediscovered my passion to play.

As a behind-the-scenes egg in the carton, most of you reading probably don’t know much about me. I’m the Editor for Fried Egg Golf, and I spend my days editing stories, updating our site, and helping our content team shine. But long before that, I worked on the grounds crew at a local muni throughout high school and college. (Shoutout Ridge Top Golf Course in Medina, Ohio.) I thought that would be it for my time in golf. I never thought I'd work full-time, let alone be going on seven years in the industry.

After college while I was working as a reporter for USA Today in D.C., the game was always an escape, a way to touch some grass. I played most Friday mornings with the old guys out at the Langston down the road from my apartment on Capitol Hill. Twilight nines at East Potomac were a weekly occurrence depending on the day and available tee times.

When I started a new job with Golfweek in 2019, I began to take the game more seriously. I previously never cared what I shot and hardly ever kept score, but playing bogey golf while attempting to become an authority on the game didn’t sit well with me. Looking back, that’s flawed logic. I’m willing to bet Adam Schefter doesn’t throw the tightest spiral and Brian Windhorst’s handle could likely use some work. But back then, I thought those things mattered. I became obsessed with my score, a bizarre occurrence given that for every good look at birdie I faced in a round, I had two even better looks at double bogey. I played a lot of golf during COVID and got to the point where I was consistently breaking 80, a major step for me. Then I plateaued. The work I was putting in on the range and practice greens wasn’t translating to lower scores.

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I moved to Raleigh in 2022 and started to play less golf. I hardly ever practiced. Two years later, I couldn’t get off the tee. Irons and wedges were fine, but I had the full-blown driver yips. I felt the same anxiety standing on the tee that I used to have before a test I didn’t study for. I tried to battle through it for a year. I watched every video online. I listened to every piece of unsolicited swing advice offered. Shockingly, that didn’t work! At all.

Instead of finding a coach and taking lessons to address the root of the problem, I shut it down this year. Prior to the last two weeks, I had played three full 18-hole rounds and taken a few laps around the Cradle at Pinehurst. That’s it.

Every Labor Day weekend my friends and I from high school get together for our annual fantasy football draft for the league we’ve had since we were 10. After college, four of us would get together and play golf the day of the draft. Over the last 10 years, our little foursome has grown to include almost the entire league for a scramble, where the losers pay the greens fee for the winners. That day was the best I’ve had on the course in some time, likely since our outing the year prior, and it wasn’t just because my team won for the first time. We drank beer, ate hot dogs, and talked about our lives, families, jobs, football, you name it, all while playing a game we enjoyed.

Four days later, I drove down to get my first look at the Matchbox, a new 12-hole short course next to Tobacco Road in the Carolina sandhills. In the weeks leading up to the grand opening, I scoffed at the idea of a $75 fee to play golf on artificial turf. But as I walked across the bridge to the mini clubhouse and first tee, I remembered my round with my friends and that golf is supposed to be fun. Are some of the green slopes and runoffs a little gimmicky and comically severe? Yes. But it sure was fun to navigate and get creative with some shots and chips you don’t see during a normal round. I didn’t know the other three guys in my group, but just a few holes in we were already talking like long-lost friends. Especially after they praised my, I’ll say, perfect shot on the sixth hole through a narrow gap of trees that somehow missed two different branches and came to rest within a couple feet of the pin. Yes, I'm still thinking about that shot, too. Golf has a way of doing that.

Golf is a great game for many reasons, a large one being that it can’t be perfected. That pursuit to improve can be really entertaining and rewarding, until it gets in the way of having fun. Trust me, I’ve been there. Thanks to my boys from back home and the strangers I met at the Matchbox, that won’t happen again.

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