When I walked off the golf course today, I felt like I was about 14 years old.

Not in a good way, either. I did something really goofy on the 18th hole, and it was pretty embarrassing to have to go into the pro shop and admit it.

I hit a mediocre tee shot on the 18th hole, and even though I fully intended to play it, I did what I often do when I'm playing alone and there's no one behind me. I hit a few more balls to try and get the shot right. Two of the balls went into some tall grass off the fairway, and I decided to go in after them -- in my golf cart.

Uh huh. I have no idea why the middle part of the grass was muddy -- it has been days since we had any rain -- but whatever the reason, I reached a point where the cart wouldn't go forward and it wouldn't go back. It was stuck in the mud, and when I decided to abandon the cart and carry my bag the rest of the way, I stepped into some fairly deep mud myself.

[caption id="attachment_1108" align="alignright" width="300" caption="My right foot"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/20110508_43.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1108" title="20110508_43" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/20110508_43-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a>[/caption]

As you can see from the accompanying photo, at one point my entire right shoe was submerged in mud. The left foot wasn't quite as bad, but I still felt like sort of an idiot. Couple that with the fact that my lovely daughter had called me a dumbass earlier in the day (see previous post) and I was definitely not enjoying myself on Mother's Day.

They actually thanked me when I came in and told them about the stuck cart. Apparently it isn't all that uncommon for people to get their cart stuck somewhere and just abandon it without letting anyone know.

The irony of it was that when I walked in my muddy shoes to where my first shot had landed, I saw that I was about 130 yards from the pin, although a tight group of about a dozen trees was directly in my way.

I figured what the heck and hit a seven-wood directly at the trees. Amazingly -- they<em> do</em> say trees are 90 percent air -- the ball passed through unmolested, hit on the green and scooted through, just off at the back. I chipped to within five feet of the hole and then made the putt for par, finishing an amazing round.

I had gotten off to a slow start, bogeying the first four holes. I parred four of the next five to finish the front nine with a 41, although I bogeyed the seventh hole, one of my more consistent par holes.

I started the back nine with two bogeys, so I was seven over after 11 holes. My only chance at breaking 80 would be to par the last seven holes, which I have never done. Not even close.

I parred the par-five 12th, the par-four 13th and the par-five 14th, but I bogeyed the easy 15th hole when I three-putted. That meant that even if I parred the last three -- three of the toughest holes on the course for me -- the best I could do was an 80.

I parred 16 thanks to a terrific chip, and I put my second shot on the par-four 17th 15 feet from the hole from 160 yards out. Then I stunned myself -- I have been putting horribly lately -- by rolling in a 15-footer for my first birdie ever on that hole.

When I parred 18, I had shot 38 on the back nine and walked away in my squishy, muddy shoes with a 79.

So I felt stupid, but happy.
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<em>Just a note at the end. It's the third time in the last month that I've broken 80, and I'm sure a lot of it is that I'm improving because I'm playing a lot of golf. I added it up, and I believe I have played golf 21 times in the last 31 days, including seven times in the last eight days.</em>

<em>In other words, I have played more golf in the last month that I usually played in a year when I was living in California.</em>

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