I was standing with my dad at my siblings' soccer game yesterday, and he was bragging to a guy about how phenomenal of a golf player my brother is. My parents and brother had played golf that morning, and Skipper never passes up an opportunity to tell other people about how incredible his children are.
And sometimes his stories are embellished.
I was listening to him go on and on about how beautiful Chris' stroke is and how far he can drive the ball—more than 300 yards with a 3 wood. My brother played golf regularly for a few years when we were kids but stopped when he decided to focus solely on football. So yesterday my dad told the man next to us, "He should have stuck with it. He could be on the NIke Pro Tour right now."
It's nice to have a dad who believes in his children that much.
I've mentioned before that I started playing golf when I was younger simply because my brother did. But I am not nearly as good as he is. In fact, I might be what some consider "bad." My mom always scolds me when I say that and reminds me that I won the city golf tournament alongside my brother two years in a row. I remind her that I was the only girl, and they had no choice but to give the trophies to me. I'm pretty sure I shot a 70-something…on nine holes.
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| When's our tee time? |
The truth is, I'm not sure I really liked golf all that much. The tournaments we played were in the summer, which means one thing in Texas: scorching. And we had to walk. There were no golf carts allowed in the youth tournaments. My sweet mom was a trooper and volunteered to be one of the parents who helped out, so she was always with me, and I always insisted on being in my brother's group, so at least I got to suffer with two of my favorite people. When just our family went to play, I usually had more fun playing in the golf carts with my sister (and driving them illegally). And I really loved when the refreshment cart came around, and I got ice-cold Gatorade—yes, that was much better than actually playing the game.
I did, however, learn quite a few things about golf that have stuck with me, as I feel like they relate to life, as well.
1. Patience. You can't exactly rush things—or people—in golf. You simply have to wait. And you're likely going to get very frustrated, because you might hit a bad shot or sail one into the water or find yourself wasting four or five strokes just to get out of the sand trap in which you got yourself stuck. You're out on that course for multiple hours, and it often seems like there's no end in sight. I think this is good training for the real world, though. You're not always going to hit the ball the way you want, so to speak, and you might end up in brushes and traps rather than perfectly aligned on the fairway. But, regardless of where the ball lands initially, you can still make sure you get it to the green at some point.
2. Strength variation. When you're teeing off, you generally want to use a lot of force in your swing. When you're near the green, though, you might have to use a soft chip rather than something powerful. The same goes when your putting—you might need to, as we are reminded in the great Happy Gilmore, "just give it a little tappy, tap, tap, tap-a-roo." Life often hands us situations where we have to show great strength, but it also gives us times where we have to be more vulnerable and let our guards down. We have to be weak so that He can be strong.
3. Integrity. Golf is one of those games where it's so easy to lie or cheat if you really want. Thankfully, my mom certainly wouldn't let a Merrill do that. However, we played with this one kid once who really wanted to beat my brother, and we suspected he was not counting all of his strokes throughout the tournament. My brother still ended up beating him, but I'm pretty sure the other boy had an inaccurate score at the end of the day. I remember not being too proud of my 70-whatever-it-was score but content that it was at least truthfully earned. Being true is a good value for anyone to learn. People aren't always going to be watching you in life, and there will be times it's easy to "overlook" a few swings you took. It's better to resist that temptation and simply be genuine, instead.
4. Mulligans. This might be one of my favorite parts of the game: a do-over. Obviously you can't take a mulligan every single time you mess up, but it's good that there is at least an option for another shot. I don't think it's technically supposed to be allowed in a tournament, but, let's be honest, I am a girl, and I was the only girl playing in the thing, so I'm pretty sure they were a bit lenient on that rule. We frequently receive mulligan opportunities in life. In fact, Christ offers us so many mulligans that it's ridiculous, because we just keep making the same mistakes over and over again. But, His mulligan love is so great for us, that he doesn't even keep count of all of our mess-ups—they're simply wiped clean and replaced by our mulligans.
I'm not sure when (if ever) I will hit the fairways again, but I'm thankful for the things I took away from my golfing adventures. The good thing about life is that even if you don't score par, it matters not. There is no perfect score. We all have different courses and varied fairways, and we may end up in way more sand traps than we ever thought possible. But it's ok, because God doesn't care about that number on your scorecard. In fact, you can just shred that thing. As long as you're aiming for His green, you're as on par as you need to be. Who needs the Nike Pro Tour when you're on God's Tour?
It's nice to have a Father who is that faithful to His children.
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