I have played disastrously little golf this year. Here are 5 ways I want to change

The holidays mean it’s time to take stock of what’s really important:

Play golf with your best friends.

That’s why I want us to do something before the end of the year to set better priorities for 2026.

I saw people posting their USGA GHIN Rewinds (if you use the GHIN app presented by Sentry Insurance, log in and press “More”, you should see your “2025 GHIN Rewind” in the list) and so I called mine – only to be devastated by what I found: only seven rounds of recorded golf.

Here’s the thing: me Love golf. And I think it’s good for me too. Good for my body. Good for my mind. Good for my friendships. Good for my life balance. Good to get away from a screen for a few hours. And just throw it down seven rounds is especially embarrassing because I work in golf and barely have a real job.

I have excuses, as do we all. A young boy that I enjoy being with. A significant amount of work traffic. A full-day golf commitment can feel like a lot. I should also point out that I did play more than seven rounds; I live in Washington State, where if you’re a determined muddler, the actual playing season is longer than the handicapping season. Still, I wasn’t playing enough. Golf is one of my favorite things in the world, it’s one of my favorite ways to spend time with friends, new and old, and I want to do it more.

So for 2026 I will announce my intentions. And this is where I’m going to start: by making a list of non-negotiables, people who bring me the joy of playing golf with. I’m going to text those people. “Let’s go golfing at least once next year.” And then I’ll think about it some more Where I want to play and when works best. I’m asking you the same thing I’m asking myself: where does golf fit comfortably into the rest of your life? Do you have flexible hours? Are weekdays the move? Early mornings? Twilight rounds? Would joining a league give you a reliable nine-hole weeknight that makes you happy? For me, I think leaning further into weekday morning rounds could be unlocking, but I’ll use the holidays to brainstorm further.

Then there’s the buddy trip question. Do you live apart from your best golfing friends? Do you need a weekend destination to get together? It doesn’t have to be Bandon. It could be Biloxi. (Serious – Biloxi intrigues me.) A particularly obvious idea is to pick a standing weekend every year – think the second week of October, the first weekend of February, something like that – and then you and everyone around you just know that a golf trip is planned.

Here are a few other goals for my new year of golf.

1. Make sure I get points for rounds I Doing play.

One of my biggest regrets about Rewind is not posting from my most frequent stop: the glorious par-28 paradise that is Interbay Golf Center. Interbay has been rated and eligible for a few years, and the GHIN has new rules around nine-hole rounds. Take advantage of it.

2. Keep my clubs easily accessible.

Unless you have an airtight garage, I’m not sure my bosses would like it if I officially recommended that you keep your clubs in your car (proceed at your own risk!), but you should make it as easy as possible to get straight to the course when the opportunity arises. For example, if you stash your clubs and extra clothes in the corner of your office, it’ll be a lot easier to cram nine in on the way home from work.

3. Remember: golf can be fast.

The recent golf boom has left courses congested at certain times of the day; Saturday mornings are unavoidably stop-and-go traffic at your local muni. But what about Tuesday? What about 5pm in the summer? What if the weather is marginal? What if you drive an hour to an option in a smaller city that is less in demand? You can enjoy a glorious eight-hour day of golf, with a full warm-up via a hangout in the grill room after the round. But you can also play plenty of golf in two or three hour increments if you want an open tee sheet.

4. Seriously – make some plans.

If it wasn’t already clear, this whole piece is just a jab at myself, a notoriously horrible planner.

5. And text your better planning buddy.

Every group has that someone that is logistically set up. You can be the ideas man; let them take the baton from there.

See you on the course.

“>