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Annual Golf Report 2018
I played more rounds of golf this year than in my previous 15 years combined. As I have two young kids at home and something lightly resembling a career, I’m calling this a resounding success regardless of any improvement (or regression) in my game. Despite the success, I wanted to recap the year, look at my game by the numbers, and see how my game has changed if it has changed at all.
First a bit of a recap. I got a late jump to the season this year with my first round in May. Since then, my games per week/month metric escalated quickly. At a high level, here’s what my year looked like:
| Month | rounds | avg score per round |
|---|---|---|
| December | 1 | 42 |
| November | 6 | 39.25 |
| October | 1 | 45 |
| September | 7 | 42.14 |
| August | 10 | 41.72 |
| July | 11 | 43 |
| June | 3 | 45.66 |
| May | 1 | 46 |
At first glance, the numbers aren’t super encouraging. The summary figures show that my scores stayed relatively flat from August to now. Swing x swing however shows noticeable improvements in my handicap from about 10 throughout the summer to just shy of 8 from October. After analyzing how the app calculates handicaps, my theory is that starting October, all of my 2017 and early 2018 rounds were filtered out leading to my official entrance into mid-handicap golf.
Overall, I’m happy with my scores this year. My irons and wedges have been getting me out of trouble while both my driver and putter have been getting me into trouble. The few rounds my driver and putter were predictable I shot (near) scratch golf which was encouraging. But scores aside, I spent a lot of time on the course and met some great people. One of whom is just as serious as I am about playing. More than anything else that is adequate reason to pause and celebrate a successful 2018 golf season.