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Down on the Range

The feeling is altogether fulfilling when a golf ball ascends into the air on a majestic, backspinning arc that launches like a rocket and hangs lazily in the clouds before landing softly out in the distance. Every so often, golfers know this feeling of triumph - flush is how the shot is described, with all the other supporting adjectives that sum up its lovely result. I would have traded my first round of golf for a few of these flush shots, as I found my game utterly rusted over and decaying after a year of almost non-play. Usually, I keep my game in relative maintenance, making the links at least 4-5 times during the year (my former life as a consultant severely limited my playing capacity to that amount). But a year abroad in Switzerland killed my momentum and kept me far, far away from anything related to the rough and bunkers of a golf course.

Alas, now I have a "normal" job and some time (relatively) on my hands - but I have not put my skills to the test. Until this weekend. At which point, I decided that I was very far from what constitutes a golf game. So before I left my old hometown, I settled myself down in front of a bucket of balls, loosened my hands, practiced a bit of a shoulder turn, and just pounded golf balls. There, amidst the rubble of jerky leg movements and bobbing torso lunges, I found the remnants of a golf swing. Down on the range, I feel that my game might come back sometime this summer.

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