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

Madden 09 comes out today, and yes, Brett Favre will be a Jet on the game. If you’ve seen my previous post about Favre, you know I’m a Packers fan and a Brett Favre fan.

I was really hoping he would come back and play for the Packers. I almost got my wish when he was reinstated by Roger Goodell (NFL Commissioner) and flew into Packers
training camp in a spectacle that reminded me of a certain white Bronco and how closely that was watched on TV. I think it was around 1996…

However, to my disgust, Favre was traded to the Jets. I don’t even want to begin discussing why this happened. I’m just accepting that it has been done. I will always remain
a Packers fan, and I guess I can root for Favre since he’s on an AFC team that the Packers do not play (until the Super Bowl). What a mess.

So, for now, I will buy Madden, play as the Packers, and maybe occasionally play as the Jets and see how Darth Favrer will fair in the tough AFC.

Or, I’ll just go play golf!

Yea, I hit golf balls around 7:00 tonight. I melted more than the Wicked Witch in OZ. It was my first post-hip-surgery effort to hit balls outside on natural grass (I had hit a few times in doors at a local indoor golf simulation training facility - much cooler). Yes, you did read right when I said post-op. I had surgery on my right hip on April 24 for something called “femoroacetabular impingement”, or something like that. You can look it up, but I will say it’s not a hip replacement, just a bone that had formed the wrong way and caused some problems in my hip. A few months removed from surgery and still recovering with psychical therapy, I attempted to hit some balls outside…and failed. I had no expectations, so at least I had that going for me. I have a long way to go, but I just have to re-learn my swing, because I have the capability and flexibility now that I’ve never had before. So I am optimistic. I am going to just keep praying for recovery and the ability to get my swing back, for as the Holy Father has said, “Let’s not shackle the Holy Spirit, so that He can make of us works of art!” (thank you to my sister, Kristin, for the quote). Back to the golf, it was HOT. Actually it’s not just the heat, because it gets hot in California or Colorado, but it’s the humidity we are so blessed with here in Memphis. As long as I stay hydrated, it’s possible with some getting used to - I’ll just make sure I have an extra glove…and shirt…maybe some extra spikes…extra clubs for when they slip out of my hand and go flying aimlessly onto the range…pine tar…40 box fans…Big League Chew…smelling salt for heat stroke…127 towels…Lou Diamond Phillips…magnifying glass for ants trying to get into Big League Chew…swimsuit…the list could go on, but why?

Peace

If there’s one thing I love more than golf it’s football! I am so amped up for football I can barely contain myself. No really. I’m about to go pre-order Madden ‘09, get the special addition with Madden ‘89 and some other goodies, pre-order NCAA ‘09, do a practice fantasy draft online for the upcoming fantasy football season, paint black under my eyes, buy football pads, and go play football! OK, maybe I took it too far. I haven’t be able to play golf this year, save for a few times, because of a hip problem I’ve had (probably from too much football!). I’m recovering from surgery, but that’s another story. For now just know that I have played golf maybe 5 times this year! 5 times! I feel amputated. But I will soon be back in the “swing” of things. Football, however, is around the corner. I am and will always be a Green Bay Packers fan. Yes I am also a Brett Favre fan - the main reason I became a Packers fan in the early ’90s. I know everyone is sick of hearing about his retirement. I, for one, have yet to watch his “retirement” press conference, because I knew he wasn’t done. He can still play at a high level, and the Packers are on the brink of something great. He is what they need to get back to glory! Their defense is a top-5 squad, and their receiving corps is a top-5 squad. Their #4 actually (go figure):

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So Brett needs to come back in my opinion. I’m not aggravated at all with his dancing around the subject. Of course I am biased, but the guy’s done more for the city of Green Bay than the color green that the Bay was named after. I think he’s kind of earned a pass to do whatever he wants after 17 years of never missing a start and setting every quarterback record that you can think of. I think Aaron Rodgers will be a good quarterback. He will ever know how valuable it was for him to sit on the sideline and not play, so that he can learn and prepare for the time when he is called upon to play. That time is not now. With this team of talent, they need a veteran leader who has been there before and can take them all the way. Or maybe this is the year the Buffalo Bills win one for Jim Kelly?

I’ll start by saying, in all honesty, I am so new to this, that I’m sitting here trying to think what the word “blog” really means. Is it an abbreviation? Short for another word/phrase? Somebody tell me! I guess it doesn’t really matter for now.

I’ve been meaning to “blog” for a long time. Isn’t it amazing how many times we use that phrase: “I’ve been meaning to do…for a long time”? What stops us? Are we too tired? Too lazy? Bills? Kids? TV? What really keeps us from doing the things we want to do? Or even if we don’t really want to do something, we know that it needs to be done. We all feel great after completing a task, yet we put things off over and over again. Life is hard, no doubt, and real “life” stuff does come up. I’m just amazed at where the time goes. I say this in regard to myself. I’ve been “meaning” to blog for a while, and I know see that “a while” is actually around 3 months. 3 months! I blame it on the Devil. Ha! That sneaky, little cockroach. But seriously, I know perfectly well that we humans can’t blame everything on Satan. We have to take accountability for our own actions. I learned this a long time ago from the game of golf. During a bad round, it’s extremely easy to blame other factors for your own mishaps. The wind! The chipmunk making noise in my backswing! It’s too hot! The list can go on and on with golf. In game as tough as golf, much like life and it’s trials, until the player stops blaming other factors and begins taking responsibility for his or her own actions, that player can never fully reach their potential. Ahhh. Life lessons from a game. Only in God’s World.