Is it Spring Yet?

Augusta National Golf Club, dreaming of spring

This winter has gone on, and on, and on, and on some more.  I know you folks who live up there north of Atlanta have had it rougher than those of us who live down here in Magnolia Blossom Land, but even here, where the tulip trees are blooming, the dogwoods are in full bud, and the azaleas are scheduled to pop in about two weeks, it's still winter, or what passes for winter in the South.


I've played exactly two rounds of golf since Valentine's Day and both of them were mandatory rather than optional: Wes dropped in for a couple of quick visits.  (Happily, I've gotten on his East Coast loop so perhaps we'll have a rematch fairly soon.)

I won the first match and we were all square at the end of the second, and both too cold to pursue a proper playoff.  Now that's a sad state of affairs for a mother-son golfing pair!

But for the most part, there's not been much golfing weather for the last two months.  The rain's been cold and incessant and left everything in a somewhat marshy state.  I suppose I could have used the situation to my advantage and spent some time practicing chipping out of casual water.  But why should I.?  Don't we get relief from casual water?

I've dusted off my green Augusta National cap and taken to rolling putts on the Persian carpet in the living room, which has some nice patterns that are letting me gauge distance.  That will surely pay off in a while, when the greens have some real grass on them instead of brown, dormant stuff that's been sprayed with green-tinted fertilizer.

While I wait for the temperature to get up a few more degrees and the ground to dry out, I'll faithfully stretch and flex, optimistic that the current cold is just a last gasp of a winter that's on its way out. And I have a new swing trainer I'm going to try out and review in the next few days, a cute little device that promises to help correct my weight shift, which is sometimes a bit awkward, leaving me following through with my weight on my back foot and in a rather silly position, if it doesn't catapult me through the back door and across the deck and into the mud which is currently my back yard.

And I'll dream about my first round this spring with the dogwoods and redbuds and azaleas in full bloom!