2nd place…or is it 3rd?

Remember your first bout with losing in sports? Remember your kids’ first loss?

For me, it wasn’t exactly on the playing field but on the podium. I had just lost by one shot to my good friend Kenny, my 43 to his 42, after a hard fought week at golf camp. Yes, golf camp — which basically consisted of four days hitting 7 irons for 45 minutes, a putting contest, sneaking mello yellow soda into our golf bags and then teeing up our range balls even when we were in the fairway. On camp’s final day, after finishing second to Kenny’s lucky round, I figured I’d get second pick from the prize bin–an awesome new driver or putter. But after Kenny picked the driver, the camp instructor called out Nicky’s name, not mine. She grabbed the putter, leaving me with a bag of red tees. I’m not complaining, but that’s quite a drop off in prizes. I mean, Olympians all get medals. For Nicky’s part, she had improved all week and her putter was made of plastic, so maybe she deserved it. What irked me was the justification for her 2nd place position: “low net” said Instructor Bill. Low net is an odd sort of thing for an 11 year old to get since (a) there was nothing really “low” about Nicky’s scorecard (it took a calculator to tally it)and (b) none of us had handicaps yet.

Her final round was a 141 for 9 holes, which meant her handicap was basically 100.

I don’t exactly recall what my dad told me about it after on the ride home, and I’m not sure I even told him, but if I did I’m 100% sure he didn’t go argue my case to the instructor; he probably would have smiled a bit and said something like, “That’s tough Bry. You’ll get over it. Now go mow the backyard”