Confessions of a Golf Addict

So I need to back up before I can go forward with this confession . . . to that pesky shoulder injury -- the one that involved some calcification, perhaps a tear in my rotator cuff, and some issue with my bicep tendon that was causing chronic tendonitis -- that was interfering with my swing.

After spending months swinging my sticks and suffering, and then more months with the physical therapist and still suffering with and without swinging, I gave in and scheduled the surgery I'd been trying to avoid because everybody (translate: everybody with whom I golf regularly who knew at least one other golfer who'd had shoulder surgery) kept telling me I'd be out of golf for at least three and probably six months, and six months without golf felt like an impossibly long time to me.

Rule #13: Play It As It Lies, or: Hit The Ball. Go Find It. Hit It Again.

Golf is a simple game.  There are only 34 official rules.  So playing a round of golf within the rules should be fairly straightforward.  Right?

Charley Hull, the fearless teenager who put on such an amazing demonstration of golf in her match against Paula Creamer at the 2013 Solheim Cup, offered the best explanation I've ever encountered of how the game of golf is to be played: Hit the ball.  Go find it.  Hit the ball again.