The Godly Golf Guru

So as I’ve mentioned in my previous posts, I’m recovering from hip surgery. This has significantly hindered my efforts to play golf, but I believe in the end it will all be worth it. I’m doing physical therapy and getting stronger, and I’m hitting golf balls a few times a week. I’ve only played once. It was 9 holes, and it’s was treacherous.

I will tell you, though, I am learning patience. This is just one of the virtues golf teaches. If you want to play golf, you have to have patience. There is no way around it. It’s different from any other sport. Football requires anger, aggression, intensity, and a lot of fearlessness. Golf requires fearlessness, but there is no room for anger or aggression. You can be an intense golfer, but you must control your emotions.

Does this remind you of anything? It reminds me of life. I believe in living life with intensity, passion, fearlessness, and the occasional anger (righteous indignation is preferred!). However, how many times do we let these feelings get us in trouble? The answer is different for each person, but I can assure you we’ve all been “there”. I wish I could challenge the World to quit taking everything so personally, and control what we say and how we treat each other.

One more sports analogy: look at baseball. In baseball, another unique “control your emotions” sport for the reason I’m about to tell you, a fielder - meaning when you are on defense trying to get the batter out - must have a fearless, intense, quite reckless attitude to play well. It’s the “football” side of baseball, if that makes sense. Conversely, when the same fielder come to bat, things change. All recklessness must be put to rest for the time being. The batter has to control his adrenaline and remain very focused, because the pitcher is about to do everything in his power to prevent the batter from hitting the ball. Carelessness or anger or too much aggression will only lead to a strike out. This is the “golf” side of baseball.

So golf teaches us to be patient and control our crazy tendencies. Baseball, too, can be applied to life in that we have to know when to be reckless and when to be focused. So what’s it going to be? Football, golf, or baseball?

I bet if you chose golf you’d get more out of Mass? HA

Ahh, the spontaneous acts we engage in from time to time. I don’t usually act spontaneous, but I felt compelled this past Thursday when I saw on Facebook that a friend of mine was looking for someone to go to St. Louis with him. He was going to meet his girlfriend, who lives in Minnesota, half way and go see a game with her, but she wasn’t able to go. Being the Mets fan that I am, I said I’d go. My friend is from New York and along with another New Yorker (a Yankees fan) we left Thursday around noon and made the 4:30 hour drive to St. Louis. There’s not much between Memphis and St. Louis, except for some “throwed rolls” at Lambert’s. The Mets won 11-1, it was my first Mets game ever, and I’ve been a fan since childhood. No particular reason, I just liked blue, Daryl Strawberry and HoJo, and baseball cards. I really enjoyed the city of St. Louis in my brief stay. I wish to go back soon, maybe spend a weekend. Maybe I’ll go to the Cathedral and try and see the Archbishop before he leaves for Rome! Congratulations to him. All in all, I can’t wait to go back. So here’s to more random acts of fun we should all engage in!