What's the motivation here?

This is Slacker the Hacker and my personal journey through the game has not taken a direct route from humble beginnings to great riches and stardom, more like from humble beginnings to humble middles. It’s not that I feel stuck in a mire or slump and definitely not having a midlife deal, but competition alone has never done it for me. I remember Annika saying once that for her it was not a desire to win that drove her forward but a hatred of losing, I’m sure that’s a paraphrase but you get what she means, it wasn’t about the “glory of winning” it was about the “fear of losing”. That seems somehow to be a negative approach to me but then again, humble middles and all maybe I should try to learn something here. It is a question of what motivates us as golfers, what makes us tick, and what makes us play and perform to the best of our abilities, week in and week out. I never thought of it as competition, I just wanted to beat my buddies, and it has been hard to take that motivation into full field events as they are not all my buddies and I lose interest. Cash games are another matter because at least it’s usually all in the group, but to play all day and find yourself outside the big money by a couple of shots, it’s aggravating thinking about missed short ones, loose drives, sketchy lags, missed greens, it gets even better when some punk is bragging up how he one-putted seven times on the back to only have eleven putts, what the f*ck I had more putts than that half way through the back. The other day I was playing with The Screw and he didn’t want to have even a friendly wager on the game, he wanted to “play the course” insert eye roll here, just another hack and practice day for me I thought you know try shots you wouldn’t normally try, see what can be done in different situations, cause who cares right? Why would someone lay up with nothing on the line? How will you know if you can get home if you don’t try once in a while, right? Well I’m starting to think, WRONG, it might be the other way around, if laying up is the highest percentage shot and will therefore logically lead to the lowest score the most often, then it just makes sense to play that way all the time and become a master in that area of the game. The players on the LPGA Tour can really drive that point home, I’ve been to some tournaments and watched where they lay up from on par 5s and while at first I groaned, it wasn’t long before I started rethinking the whole deal, the birdie percentage was amazing. I also remember reading something somewhere about Zach Johnson laying up on every par 5 on the way to his green jacket, I’m not positive that’s accurate, but it’s good thoughts none the less. All of this leads us to my announcement right here on “Golf to Go” that this year will be the year I rededicate myself to my game. Hackenstein the Caddy, my mutated fifteenth club might tell you that this is not the first year I have made this announcement, but as he can’t spell or type I don’t have to worry about it. I have a competitive outlet lined up for the coming year in the form of a season long match play tourney, and a couple of biggie type individual events. What I lack is interest, motivation, enough distance off the tee, and as of yesterday afternoon I can no longer touch my toes, this is shaping up to be quite a journey. I think I’ll start out with a big, shiny, new driver that should help with the distance, especially working with The LeaderBoard. It’s been many summers since I was a young hammer, but I am wise now and have a few more tricks, but I remember when I was hammering the ball it was easy to keep my interest up and that should motivate me to touch my toes more often. I just hope it all leads to lower scores, I’ll keep you posted on what I learn, your comments are always welcome, and until we do this again this is Slacker the Hacker saying stay motivated and play the game the way it was meant to be played.