Life is like unto a game of golf

It is early Saturday morning. As you inhale slowly taking in the cool morning air, you can smell the faint smell of the moist grass, and the wonderful smells of early morning. It is just starting to get light, and you can feel the cool breeze. You’re still a little cold, but you know that soon you will be warm, with sunglasses on enjoying the sunshine. It is the perfect time of day. Peace, quite, still, relaxing, these are just some of the words that one can use to describe the feeling felt at the tee box of the first hole.

You reach down to place your ball on the tee. Trying to get it to the perfect height to perch your golf ball on. Once set you place your ball on top making sure to line up the line you drew on your ball with the distant flag. You back up and stand behind your work, and stare down the fairway at the large patch of green off in the distance. You stand and ponder your plan off attack. Do you go for the green or do you just lay it up in the fairway leaving yourself a good safe second shot? Just a couple of the many questions you ask yourself before you take your first shot of the day.

After a few moments of contemplation you’re ready for your shot. You take your place next to the ball with your club in your gloved hand. You line up for the shot and in the very brief moment before you begin to swing the club back you take into account the slight change in wind and recheck your grip. Once this is done it is time, you begin to swing back and you feel your left shoulder slightly push against your chin letting you know you have gone back far enough, a momentary pause and then you release. Feeling calm and loose you swing your club forward, and as you strike the ball with a very satisfying metallic sounding pop you continue with your follow-through allowing your right shoulder to push your chin to the left, your body following along to watch the ball almost effortlessly fly towards the green. You stop, you don’t move for some reason, it is almost as if you do you just might alter the path of the ball.

Once the ball has landed you allow yourself to drop your club and relax your stance, squaring yourself with the far off green. Your choice to go for green has paid off. You did not quite make it, but instead your ball in a cool 20 yards to the front left of the pin. An easy chip you think to yourself. Your heart beats slightly faster as you consider the fact that you have the potential to open the day up with a birdie. You whisper to yourself “I love golf” as you slowly walk off the tee box to your bag to replace your driver to it’s proper location. And allow your friend to take their shot.

There are few other games like golf. It is something that once you play you either think to yourself “eh it is ok but not that fun” or you just simply can not stop thinking about it. There are many wonderful things about this great game of golf. Now I am not going to try to convince you that you need to start playing golf, although I would be happy if you did, I am just going to compare some similarities, or parallels between golf and life.

IN life we are all to often presented with choices that we need to make. Some of them are simple and others are not so simple. Some of them we have made before and others we might have to try something a little more risky to make it work. In golf it is fairly similar. We often times hit the ball in a similar place as before, but at other times we may do much better or far worse, landing you in the trees to the right of the green, or even worse right behind a tree. What do you do? Do you go around, what about trying to thread the needle and go between two trees? What about when you hit the ball into the water? It is worth it too you to go in after it? Or do you just let it go and take the 2-stroke penalty? Ahh the joy of making choices.

You may be playing an average game of golf one day. Something that is not very memorable. You will probably forget about it in a month, but then on the 11th hole you strike a ball off of the tee and it lands 5 feet from the hole, or you sink a chip from 30 yards out. All of a sudden all of the tough things that you have gone through don’t seem to matter, because that one shot makes the whole day worth it. In life it is the same, we may go though a lot of crap, but when you get the one great shot it was all worth it to get there.

In reality life just like golf is not that complicated. The method to fixing problems is typically the same; just the terrain has changed from last time. You may change from a 7 iron to a 6 iron, however you still know what to do. When you overcomplicate it you just make it worse, and when you stress about the next shot you make it worse. Just make the shot and you will do fine. So what you land in the sand, life will move on and you will be fine. You may not get the 8 over par day you hoped for, but it is the joy in playing the game that matters, not the score. However it sure is great when you get that score you were hoping for. But you will get it. It may take some time. You may have some bad games, but you must. It is part of the process of getting better and better every day.

Is it really that simple? Is it really that similar? I think so. You may or may not see what I am talking about. I am vague by design, remember do what we all so best. Think.