But on the range I was making contact AT LEAST every fifth swing!?!?

To this day whenever I golf with Dave he chuckles and asks if I remember the first time he and I were on a golf course together. I almost always shrug my shoulders and pretend to have forgotten. This, of course, is not the case. In all honesty that day will be burned into my memory forever. I had not thought about teeing off in front of anyone else but just in front of my friend, and failed to grasp the idea that on most summer days there would be a line of people waiting to get to the tee box. As we were dropped off and I pulled that old dingy bag full of clubs (probably once owned by Bobby Jones himself) out of the trunk of my mother's car, I looked around and it hit me. I wasn't just teeing off in front of Dave but in fact in front of a ton of "real" golfers. After we paid and I headed down to show the receipt to the starter I was shaking like washing machine that is loaded unevenly. This was it, my first time really golfing. We stepped up to the tee and there were about 10 people around, some waiting to tee off, others staff at Hillview golf course. It seemed like significantly more than 10 while I was standing over my ball however. I don't think I even looked at the ball I was just staring at the ground thinking I may have gotten in too deep on this whole "golf" idea. As I drew back my drive in that severely ugly baseball style swing I just repeated in my mind just hit the ball... hit the ball...hit the ball. STRIKE ONE!! I could hear the umpire say...oh wait its golf. One more time and contact. "Yes one out of two aint bad" I said almost at the exact time I made contact. The problem was that the ball landed just feet in front of me. It took me another 2 shots just to get out of the tee box. I could not have been more embarassed. I could see some of the older more experienced golfers sigh with what appeared to me at the time to be utter agony. That round of golf was about as bad as a round of 9 holes of golf could be. The ranger asked us several times to speed up, we let pretty much everyone on the course play through what seemed to me to be at least twice, and I didnt get tee to green in under 6 shots all day. NOT even on a par 3. Almost every shot I hit was undescribably bad. I say almost because I remember being about 70 yards out on a par four, after probably hitting 6 shots and I pulled out my rust covered pitching wedge. I took an ugly swing and somehow I made a shot that looked half respectable. The ball went up in the air and landed on the green. I was still a good country mile to the whole and had to putt over what appeared to be the grave site of a very large elephant, but I was on the green. This was the shot. You know the one that always keeps you coming back for more. This one did it. It was official I was hooked. I remember lying in bed that night and asking myself what exactly I did on that shot. If only I could repeat that say 80 more times with 13 other clubs I would be a good golfer. Thats the way it works, one good shot makes you physically salivate for more. You can forget every bad shot you have ever hit but you will almost always remember all of the best shots you have ever taken. This is why golf is a love hate type of addiction. You can be having the worst round of your life and be hating yourself for it and then one shot later every star has alligned and everything is right with the world. You went from zero to hero in one shot. I have said it before and I will say it again golf is an amazing sport!