Golf As Life!

Apr 17, 2023

"Golf is just like life; you can't re-do bad shots or moments. The only thing you have control over is your attitude moving forward into the future."

- Lauren Conder, College golfer

A few weeks ago, I traveled to Las Vegas with my son to watch the NCAA Basketball Western Regional.

This has been an annual tradition for us, with only a few exceptions (think COVID), for the past 20 years. We attended games on Thursday and Saturday, but had time on Friday to play a round of golf together. And I concur with Lauren, golf is like life.

The course we played was out in the desert with nothing around it. It was 57 degrees with 20+ mph winds. Like life, it seemed as though every shot required extraordinary effort. Due to the wind, some good shots didn’t turn out so well, and some bad shots probably had better results than they deserved.

I actually played pretty well on the front nine (which means I didn’t lose any golf balls, which is a clear indicator of how well I am playing).

When we came to the second nine, I started off well. Then came the 15th hole. For you golfers, it is a replica of the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass. For you non-golfers, it means a shot to an island-type green with nothing but water between you and it.

It reminds me of some of the perils of life, where we know the goal or destination, but the path to get there is fraught with danger.

I actually hit my ball onto the green, but it skipped off the green and into the water. While frustrated, I felt like I accepted my fate, picked up the pieces and moved on. However, on the 18th hole, even though I told myself to slow down and hit a smooth drive from the tee and finish well, I did not. I pushed the shot right and into the water and everything went downhill from there. I lost focus, hit a poor third shot (due to the one stroke penalty for going into the water), followed by an even worse 4th shot into the sand trap, was short of the green on my 5th shot, chipped onto the green in 6, picked up my ball and said, “I’m done.”

My decent round was ruined by a horrible finish, and an even worse attitude.

It was a perfect example of NOT heeding the Apostle Paul’s advice in Philippians 3, verses 13-14:

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

- Philippians 3:13-14

Friends, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the remainder of the hole would have gone much better had I been able to put the first shot behind me and out of my mind.

It is just like life. When we focus on our past, we can become stuck, unable to move forward, or maybe even worse, compound the poor decisions of the past with more poor decisions.

But, when we accept the negative choices and situations for what they are, and put them behind us, we can, with God’s help, create a better and more positive future.

Life does not need to be as complicated as we often make it. It truly is living moment by moment in the confident assurance of God’s Spirit guiding our steps. When we do that, even when we fail, and even when we fall, we can have a positive attitude, put the past behind us, get up, move forward, and celebrate the future God has in store for us.