Just in case you don’t already know this about me, I love the game of golf! It all began when I was about 11 years’ old and Cherokee National Golf Club opened up near where I lived. My good friend Steve Davis introduced me to golf and I was hooked almost immediately. We “hung out” at the golf course lots of times during the summer and it amazed me how some of the men could make a golf ball go exactly where they wanted it to go!
I came to realize that making that little white ball go where you want it to go is not as easy as some people can make it look! I did not take practice seriously when I was in high school but once I enlisted in the United States Navy, I was introduced to the world of competitive golf and that really changed the way I practiced. I read books about golf and I watched videos by famous teachers. I also began to notice how golf courses were designed and how they were (or were not) maintained. I played college golf at what is now Upstate Carolina University in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Upstate is part of the University of South Carolina system and we had a very competitive golf team. Our coach told us something that has stuck with me all these years. He said, “Before you tee up the ball on the very first hole, you have to decide—are you going to play to win or play not to lose?” That is a great question and one that I still ask myself often. Golf is the only professional or amateur sport where the player actually calls rules and violations on themselves! I have said that if I play one round of golf with a person, just 18 holes, I can tell a lot about them by what they do on the course and with the rules! There really are only two rules in golf (not really, but all the rules center on one or both of these two things!): play the ball as it lies and leave the course the way you found it. The same hold true for life. We don’t always get a “good lie!” But we always have a choice – we can make the best of a situation or we can work to change it. Someone once said that when life hands you lemons, make lemonade! Golf has taught me many things about life—hopefully you can learn something from this even if you hate golf! Amen. Comments are closed.
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This blog consists of reflections written by the minister each week for the Sunday bulletin. We hope that you enjoy the musings! Archives
January 2020
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