Golf as Life

 

genteel - adjective - polite, refined, respectable, often in an affected or ostentatious way (Google).

My father and his people were golfers, genteel in the positive sense: polite, refined, respectable: the epitome of white privilege, yet hardworking, focused, and consequently, successful. As a child, I didn't understand the purpose of the game. I surveyed the vastness of the course at Baltusrol, the family's destination on Sundays post church, and couldn't fathom how adults could spend hours using numbered clubs to hit the same little white ball up, out and about, often skimming the antlers of stags, branches of trees or worse, hooking the ball only to wind up in the woods, physically searching for it. At seventeen, golf was a portion of physical education at my high school, so I had to learn how to play it in order to graduate. I did, and ever since, I have been challenging myself to play the bittersweet sport, finishing rounds with feelings that are often more bitter than sweet. 

Without a doubt, golf is the most difficult sport to play. Any professional athlete will confess to that. It is also the best game to use as a metaphor for life. And if you have been reading this blog long enough, you know that I like to indulge in sports metaphors. Like life, golf is demanding, requiring focus and perspective. As the player, you have to step back and take in the vastness of the field before you decide how to proceed, what club to use. Just the right tool in life can often make or break you.  In golf as well as life, accurate perspective is essential. If you don't contemplate your course beforehand, you may wind up in the woods. Being myopic will get you nowhere. Your grip on the club could be compared to your attitude and mental acuity, necessary to remain safely on the fairway or on the correct, ethical route in life.  Finally, a genteel posture and unselfish aim will enable you to navigate the ever changing course. Life's virtue, patience and strict adherence to the rules of the course will keep you from hitting up on others in front of you and causing damage (possibly being accused of manslaughter–you don't want to hit or get hit with a ball). Although you have free will, there are certain mandates in golf and in life that you need to consider and follow to get you through unscathed.

Now I don't believe that people play golf intentionally because they view it as comparable to life, but I do believe that people like it because it is a game as unpredictable as life. You never know how your round will go as ultimately you are competing against yourself, just like in life. But if you take lessons, practice, go out on that driving range in order to prepare (meaning get yourself a solid education and internship), you have a better chance at success albeit there are no guarantees. In golf and in life, you will have good shots that amount to days and bad shots that amount to days; ergo, a genteel you will need to accept both since life is a balance. Yet despite the inevitable frustrations, you stay in the game and play for the highs, the unforgettable drives, chips, and putts that send the ball into the hole as a birdie or eagle. The moments of triumph on and off the course are what we live for and what we appreciate and cherish when we reach the end of the game we call life.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you Americans out there! 

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