The Second Links Traveler

I hope you all have been getting some good golf in this week. While the sun is shining at Rainbow Links Hawaii, it’s blustery and windy and just fantastic around the rest of our Second Life golf world. If you have some holiday time off, now’s a great time for golf.

Just here for the giveaway? No judgment! Scroll on down to the bottom!

I’ve been encountering a lot of new faces on the links over the past few weeks, and that’s bringing me just no end of joy. Meeting people who have just started, or names that I’ve seen on tournament boards has been such a treat. It’s so great to see the community out playing.

I’ve been participating in the Rainbow Golf Christmas Swing this past week. The Christmas Swing tourney is a four-round event, with the first two rounds played at Rainbow Valley North, and the last two played at Rainbow Links Hawaii.

My rounds at Rainbow Valley North were, for me, decent. I shot a 57 and a 58, which aren’t rounds worthy of story and song, but were still pretty good. I felt good going into my first round at Rainbow Links Hawaii, which was also a 58. Not bad. I was very confident on a top ten finish.

In my fourth round, everything that could go wrong, went wrong. Putts that were falling fell short, or broke just a little too much or not quite enough. Drives that were clearing the sand or the water plopped right into the hazard. Nearly every approach shot rolled to the edge of the green or fell short into the sand. Eight birdies, seven pars, and three bogies later, I TP’d out with a 67, my top ten finish in real jeopardy.

The next day I went back just to play another round for fun, just to erase the memory of that round. I quit after shooting a 31 on the front nine. This morning, I started on the back nine, shot a par on 10, and bogies on 11 and 12 before it began to creep over my mind that I might be in a bit of a slump.

I IM’d my golf sensei, Lexy Amore for advice, and she had some truly excellent thoughts on the matter that I felt like everyone might benefit from at one time or another.

Lexy Amore: Easy to say but harder to do. (Keep your) Shoulders down and don’t think strokes. Play and have fun with friends, give them some advice going along…just play for fun and don’t think about you need to score this or that. When all that’s running around between the ears are Eagles, HIO’s, and Birdies, nothing good will happen.

So this is my plan: I’m going to play without a scorecard for a few weeks. If a shot doesn’t go right, I’ll just mulligan it and try to find a better way to make that shot. I’m going to play with friends. We’ll play strip golf, we’ll play golf as a drinking game, we’ll make terribly untoward wagers that will range from the silly, like playing waitress at the 19th hole at Rainbow Valley for an hour, to…other…kinds that are less silly, but awfully fun to both pay out and collect on.

I’m going to take my friends out who don’t golf much and try to share some of the things I’ve learned from Lexy and Chelsea and Becca and Robin. I’m going to go shopping for more and more golfy wardrobe that screams sexyprepcore (I just made that up – it’s gonna be a thing).

What about you? When you’re in a slump, whether it’s golf of another sport or professionally or romantically, what do you do? How do you get yourself out?

GIVEAWAY! I told you we’d get there! Drop a comment on this post with your slump cure (even if it’s “I drink cheap tequila until my brain turns off”) AND your SL username! I’ll pick a name at random on Sunday, January 12, 2025 at 12pm SLT and send that individual a L$1,000 gift card from Steelhead!