GOLF
Golf is becoming more and more popular and that's a wonderful thing. Golf is great training for life. Golf is a microcosm of life. Golf is life.
My own grandfather used to say that golf requires the use of your head, heart and hands. Let's start with the heart. Golf is a demanding companion in life- it requires love which is often unrequited. It requires courage: Golf is disappointment and elation; Golf is success and failure; Golf is the gamut of emotions. Golf involves feeling in every sense of the word.
It is self-evident that golf requires use of the hands. Reading the golf instructional lore makes us think about the relative role of the hands and the rest of the body, so let's take hands to mean the whole body. The intricate nuances of strength and finesse, timing and tempo, complete effort and reserve are all part of golf.
Golf requires thinking. As in any athletic endeavor, visualization leads to the athletic motion. Golf also requires thinking because to enjoy golf fully requires an understanding of a strict code of rules, an understanding of golf's rich history, an understanding of the course and an understanding of oneself- one's potential, one's limitations, one's equipment, one's opponents, one's fellow competitors.
Golf is a lifetime of pleasure. Golf can be enjoyed at any age and at any level of skill. Golf is played in the most beautiful settings in the world, in fact, wherever golf is played is beautiful. But most importantly, we can find companions in golf who will be our best companions and perhaps even friends because we will know them better than anyone else.
Golf teaches us about ourselves. We learn all of our strengths and all of our weaknesses. Golf also teaches us about other people: Who displays patience. Who is impatient, Who is rude, Who is courteous, Who is a student, Who refuses to learn, Who perseveres, Who gives up. The love of golf enables us to forgive ourselves, to love ourselves.
Play golf! It will be your refuge from the cares of the world and it will help you know yourself.
[9-27-99]
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