[caption id="attachment_1067" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The road goes on."]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/20110425_12.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1067" title="20110425_12" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/20110425_12-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a>[/caption]

I have been writing too much about golf recently. Of course, that may be because I've been playing too much golf recently.

Or not.

I am certainly enjoying myself.

In the last 16 days, I have played 12 times. There have been some <em>years</em> in the last 15 when I didn't play much more than 12 times, so yes, I'm having fun.

I am definitely improving too. It's not at all unusual for me to hit 230-240 yards off the tee, and the other day I actually hit a 295-yard shot -- with a three-wood.

One thing I'm enjoying the heck out of is that two of the shortest par fours -- one 280 yards to the green from the white tees and another one 310 yards -- I have hit shots that stopped within five or 10 yards of the green. I'm confident that eventually I'll improve a little more and be able to put my tee shots on these two holes onto the green.

Today might have been the strangest <em>good</em> round I've ever played. The course was pretty much wide open when I got on at 5:30 p.m. for the sundown rate, and I played 18 holes in just over two hours. I was hitting great off the tees, and nearly as well from the fairways with my approach shots. Except for the fact that my putting was still mediocre on the recently aerated greens, I would have had a score that would have been better than I ever dreamed of shooting.

I missed four or five putts of 12 feet or less -- some for birdies, some for pars -- but hit my other shots well enough that I broke 80 for the second time in a little more than a week, and actually improved my best-ever score from 79 to 78.

It's funny. I would have figured that to shoot 78, I would practically have to have played perfectly. But today I shot 78 and was disappointed that it wasn't 75 or 76.

I had eight bogeys, eight pars and two birdies.

I've never had two birdies in a round before. I rolled in a 13-footer on the seventh hole, and chipped to within five feet on the 15th hole and made the putt.

I was in a position to break 80 without parring any of the last three holes, and the proverbial icing on the cake for this round was that I actually parred the 17th hole for the first time ever. That means that after five months playing here, I have now parred every hole on the course at least once.

I've learned something else that I didn't know when I moved here. I had hoped that playing more often would make me a better player, but I didn't know if it would or not.

It has -- and it's great.

78.

Wow.