The Life Lessons of Golf

The Life Lessons of Golf

I wrote this some time ago and shelved it. I didn't think that it would interest very many people. However, it stayed on my mind and with all the anger and turmoil in the world today I thought that maybe it has a place.

There is absolutely no sex in this story, which is why I have submitted it to the non-erotic category.

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I was blessed. I grew up playing the game. As a kid, golf was an exercise in learning how not to slice and it was a lesson that I never really learned. To this day, if I get tired or lose my concentration, my slice returns with a vengeance. It's the nature of the game.

People do like to make jokes about golf, and I get it. They call it "People in silly clothes walking" or "A good walk spoiled." That's the view from the outside looking in and they're not entirely wrong. People who don't play the game complain about the lack of action and say that it's boring and it makes no sense. Again, I get it.

Everything about the game is slow. Learning to hit the little ball with that oddly shaped club without digging a hole every time you swing is slow. Learning to swing so that your body pulls the club through the ball, and you aren't just using your arms takes time. Learning to keep your head down when every fiber of your being wants to know where the ball went takes a lot of time. Hitting a golf ball straight is a tough thing to do. The swing isn't natural. It's an exercise in discipline and after many years of playing you still need to periodically reexamine your swing because bad habits creep in undetected and problems develop. If you play the game, there are things you learn slowly and there are life lessons that you only learn after years of playing.

Here are the life lessons of golf.

When you cheat, you only cheat yourself. Ok, that's not a rule that's entirely unique to golf. What is unique is that the players are far apart and the opportunity to cheat is everywhere. Golf is a game of honor where you trust one another to play fair and if you cheat it doesn't change anyone's score but your own. Here's the life lesson: When you cheat, you never really win. At the end of the day, your golfing partners just want to enjoy the day playing with a person who can be trusted, who doesn't need to be watched, and who respects the game, themselves, and each other. Everyone wants to end their day like that. The cheater only deprives themself of that experience.

You play the ball where it lies. Everyone knows that rule even if they don't play the game. You cannot improve the lie of the ball and you must deal with it where you find it. Some courses are near perfect, but many are not. There are natural and manmade imperfections. This is the reason players replace their divots and mend the ground after they swing - they don't want the next player to find their ball sitting in a hole. It's the reason they rake the sand trap after walking in it. It's common courtesy. We learn that early in the game. Here's the life lesson: You must learn to deal with life as it comes. You can't change the circumstances, but you can overcome them. You can't change other people and you can't make them behave the way you want. You must deal with them the way they are and the way you find them. In the process, you must learn to make the best of a bad situation and adapt. This doesn't mean we can't show courtesy or expect better from others. It just means that we must accept what comes our way and not let it ruin our day. Sometimes the problems are natural and unavoidable and other times they are created by others. It doesn't matter. You deal with it, play your best, and move on. You don't let one bad situation ruin your whole day. It's a life lesson.

No matter how well or how badly you play, it does not change my game. Golf isn't like most games. I can't make you lose or affect your score and I'm not playing against you. It's not tennis where I try to hit the ball where you can't reach it. We each play our own game and the goal is for me to play better than I did the time before. That's the reason why distracting a player during their backswing is such poor sportsmanship. It's the true inner game of golf and you play it against yourself. Here's the life lesson and it's pretty obvious: You can't make me a better or worse man than I choose to be. I live for my own purposes, I adopt my own values, and I chart my own course, and no one is blamed or credited for what I do but me. We can help each other, and we can teach each other, but in the end the choices are mine alone. It's simple, really.

We must each walk our own path, but we are never far apart. That may sound corny, but we demonstrate it eighteen times in every round. We start each hole together on the tee, but we each walk away in our own direction. We play the hole, we keep the rules, we do our best, and we come back together on the green to finish. Here's the life lesson: We might each be called to live our own lives, but we are never far from others. We share the experience, we show courtesy to one another, and we enjoy the journey. In the end, we finish our game not far from where we started and share the experience knowing we made our choices, and we did our best.

As I said at the beginning, people like to make jokes about the game of golf. I get it, I really do. It takes a long time, you never really get anywhere, and you spend a lot of time alone trying to do something that's hard while the world around you throws obstacles in your path. It makes no sense at all, except for the purpose you look for and find. It's like life.