So I’ve taken up golf lately. Maybe I’m shaking off my inborn liberal guilt, but I’ve really been enjoying myself, despite all the injuries and searing torso pain.
A few months ago, I started physical therapy for my hands, which included some corrective chiropractic work for a curve in between my shoulder blades, which was likely from some old car wreck injury during the Salad Days of the late 90′s. Every thing has been adjusting fine, my hands have improved greatly, and my therapy is going great. However, now my ribs are out of joint.
I’ve joked about it on twitter, saying I have slippery ribs and what not, and when I went in one morning after waking up feeling like I’d slept funny and said that I thought my ribs were bunched up and crossed over, I learned that that actually sort of happens. The technical term is apparently “having a rib out” and you can shove them back into place.
As my spine corrects and straightens and strengthens, all the soft tissue around the spine gets mad at first and then takes to its new positions after a few hours or days. The ribs, however, are apparently more stubborn and will try to compensate for the new position of everything by trying to get back into the old position.
So when I’m at the driving range doing my best Lee Trevino, I invariably throw a rib into Reverse and end up complaining about my ribmeat the next time I go to see my chiropractor.
“Ice it,” he says. “Everything is still figuring out where it wants to be.”
This is a strange revelation to hear about your body parts from a medical doctor, that there’s some indecision as to proper positioning. On the inside.
But for all that, I enjoy golf. I’ve played three rounds total lifetime, own a decent set of second-hand clubs, and have managed to not spend very much money at all thus far. I enjoy the game because you can get better by yourself and then, when you’re actually playing, you’re really only competing with yourself. My first round, which I played in Minnesota in April with my wife’s best friend’s new husband, was a 140. My second round, at a country club here in Dallas, was a 105. Had I continued at that rate, I’d be shooting in the low twenties right now and riding a wave of fame and fortune.
My third round is sort of a wash as far as scoring goes. I went to play with my brother’s best friend Jason and we were at a course just off Lake Lewisville that featured gale-force cross winds for most of the day. I’d been taking golf so seriously up until that day when, on the way to the second hole, Jason stopped the cart girl and loaded up on Miller Lite.
Seeing my initial move to protest that I didn’t need any – I’m sure I was going to say something about how you gotta hydrate, bro – he said, “Come on dude, this is aimin’ juice.”
After that I drank and sliced my way to a 114, derailing my path to becoming a scratch golfer in just 5 rounds (and, no doubt, a tour pro in just 7). And it was one hell of a good time, even if I did have to blame my first 25-foot near miss putt on the wind.
No, really. It was the wind.
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