Enjoy the Journey

A golfer returns home early from his normal Saturday round of golf.

His wife asks, “Why are you home so early?

The golfer husband responds, “would you play golf with someone that was constantly adding his strokes wrong to his advantage, or moving his ball all of the time so that he could get a better shot, or lying about whether his ball went out of bounds or not, and basically cheating whenever he could?”

The wife responded, “Of course not!”

Husband, “Well either would Bob.”

I have mentioned before that I have been fortunate to have more than one passion in my life, magic, flying and golf. Magic was the first that I played around with but golf was the first that I actually pursued. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my dad in one of our late night talks while I was in college and my dad was asking me what I was going to do with my life. I told him I wanted to play golf. My dad knew my game and at the time could not see that as a realistic option.

Golf was something that I had been playing for a while and I was not very good. I was never on the high school or college teams. I did not break 100 until I was 20 but I loved the game. Growing up I played baseball, basketball and football in the little leagues and was just okay. One of the things that bothered me about team sports was that it was a lot about what someone else thought of your ability. With golf, there were no opinions. Your score told the story. Could you cheat in golf? Yes. But, it did not happen very often. In fact, golf is the only sport that I know where the player will call an infraction on himself.

So, coming out of college I decided to follow my passion and try and play golf professionally. I had a couple of connections and landed a couple of jobs at golf courses that allowed me to practice and play quite a bit when I was not working. My game improved, not as quickly as I would have liked but I was a lot more impatient when I was younger.

After a couple of years working at the courses I gave playing the mini tours in Florida a try, working at restaurants in the evenings to pay the bills. My attitude at the time was I needed to do this now and give it my best shot so that I would not wonder the rest of my life if I could make it.

It was a great learning experience for me. I learned a lot about myself. I worked hard, had no money, and played as much as I could. I learned a lot just by watching and being around players that were much better than I. Unfortunately, I did not get very far and quit trying to do it for a living three times. The reason I kept coming back is that I did not have anything else to pursue at the time. This is both good and bad. Some say that if you have nothing to fall back on you will find a way to make it work. Others say don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Both philosophies have merit.

I do not regret following my passion and not having it work. I got to experience things that 90% of all golfers will never experience. I get to enjoy the game now at a level that I never would have, had I not tried. Sometimes it can get more frustrating because now that I do not get to play as much I cannot still play at that level. I also know that if I put in a little practice I can see great returns on my time invested.

Here are a few more reasons that I still love the game of golf.

· I can go out and play by myself if I do not have anyone to play with or get paired up with someone at the golf course.

· Golfers of all abilities can play together if they want to

· I can pretty much play on my schedule and don’t have to live by the schedule of a team sport

· I can even when I am 80. How many 80 year olds do you know playing football or basketball?

So what lessons can we take away from this?

All experiences are learning experiences. Even though golf did not work out for me, I learned a lot about the game and myself, the ladder being more important.

I have had many rounds of golf where I felt like I was hitting the ball pretty well but my score was not that great and rounds where I did not feel like I was doing very but I scored well. Both were enjoyable. Golf is more than a game or a sport. It is a walk in the park. It is being out in nature listening to the birds and feeling the breeze on your face. It is getting to see nature like alligators and deer (I have seen those and more).

So we need to enjoy the journey. We need to keep in mind that even when things are not going the way that we would like there is still something that we can smile about. So enjoy the journey.