Let it be a cautionary tale about how quickly the game of golf can slip away from you. About a month ago, a stomach virus sapped my urge to get out on the links. For a two-week span, my attention was fixated on getting back to full strength.

Let it be a cautionary tale about how quickly the game of golf can slip away from you.

About a month ago, a stomach virus sapped my urge to get out on the links. For a two-week span, my attention was fixated on getting back to full strength and regaining my appetite for food, instead of the hankering to get back swinging a golf club.

The absence of an itch to play was a void that I didn't think I'd ever have, but it came with the territory.

After spending the better part of two months finding some semblance of consistency and molding my handicap into a palatable number, my lack of play created a stumbling block that sent me falling flat back to square one.

My first nine holes back after more than two weeks off were unexceptional, but tolerable. The performance was adequate enough to give me some belief that only a few cobwebs needed to be removed to get back where I was.

But that proved to not be the case.

The next time out, a friend of mine and I decided to take make the trek down to play Neshanic Valley Golf Course in Branchburg, which was ranked by Golfweek magazine as the No. 3 "Best Course You Can Play" in the state of New Jersey this year.

Fortunately, the 27-hole links-style course's charm was not lost with my inability to hit the golf ball. But it did provoke a commitment to make the 1-hour, 30-minute drive back to the club later this year when my swing was rediscovered.

Maybe it was a case of the yips, but what unfolded across the first nine holes on the "Ridge" portion of the course did not resemble golf.

The swing felt in check, but the ball stayed glued to the grass as if there were a magnet tracking it underground. When the ball did enter the air, it sprayed off to the left, the right, shot straight up or floundered straight down.

After four holes, our first round on the gem of a course quickly devolved into my worst round of the year.

Searching for any remedy to prevent the disastrous round of the decade, I thought back to something Farmstead Golf and Country Club PGA Professional Scott Pruden said to me a few years ago.

"Play with what you brought to the course that day."

The driver wasn't working, so I put it back in the bag and pulled out the hybrid on the tee-box. It cost me yardage, but it meant avoiding countless strolls through the fescue on both sides of the fairways. I got back to the basics, cycling through the fundamentals, like grip, posture and alignment, that are essential for a good golf swing.

My mind wandered off to a lesson I took two years ago when my grip was too strong and forced me to hit ground balls to the shortstop. I made an adjustment to weaken it and swung with the same sort of "uncomfortableness" that produced positive results during that hour session.

The back nine was imperfect, and an awful start still yielded my worst round in nearly five years, but there was finally traction.

It's amazing how your golf swing can disappear and then reemerge. One round you're swinging without any thoughts and crushing the ball, and the next your mind is polluted with swing thoughts that are impossible to sift through.

With that same adjustment in mind, I went out onto the tee one week later and emerged with my best round of the year. The difference in two rounds proved how important it is to have a consistent approach if you're looking to score.

For me, a two-week layoff came with eviscerating consequences. For me to feel like I have any chance to score, I need to play once a week. For the pros, that's once or twice per day. While the round at Neshanic Valley was rocky, it proved what it takes to try and bounce back out of a slump.

Now, it's time for another lesson to produce that same type of revelation somewhere down the line when I need it most.