Golf & The Abundant Life
Introduction
I was nine years of age when Dad first took me golfing. He was a war hero in the Pacific theater during WWII. Saved many members of his Marine platoon in the battle of Okinawa. I idolized him! He was bigger than life to me. So when he invited me to tag along with his golfing buddies, well, it was truly something special. How would I not fall in love with the game!
That was 1964. I’ve been enjoying the game ever since. It indeed, is a game for life. Basketball, baseball and water skiing have had to be dropped with aging. Skiing & snowboarding are done much more cautiously, but golf, not so. It’s the only game that I’m better at now, than when I was young! You see, golf imitates life, and more specifically, golf imitates spiritual life. Many of the secrets of good golf are also the secrets to a good life, to a godly life!
I know this because besides Dr. Dan Tomlinson the golf guy, I’m Dr. Dan Tomlinson the Bible guy. I can’t remember when I didn’t love God & his Son Jesus, but I can remember when I started taking God’s Word seriously. It was March 9th 1973 as a senior at Shawnee Mission South High School. A school mate gave me a copy of the Campus Crusade’s well-known, Four Spiritual Laws. You may remember; #1. God loves you and has a plan for your life. #2. Your sin has unfortunately separated you from him, creating a great chasm between you & God. #3. Jesus Christ has bridged that chasm by his atoning sacrifice on the Cross of Calvary for you. #4. All you must do to receive the free gift of salvation he offers is to repent of your sins & ask him to be your Savior. Well, something clicked that day and I went from thinking I was heading to Hell because of my sin & stupidity to knowing I was destined for Heaven to be with Jesus someday. What a revelation that was! I became interested in the Bible and read it often from that day forward.
In the Bible are secrets for life. For the Bible reveals who is our Lord and he has a name. It’s Jesus & he is the truth that sets you & me free.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him. If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed; and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:31-32
Pilate asked Jesus on that fateful day, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Not realizing He was standing in its presence! For indeed truth is that which is aligned with the character, mind, will & glory of God.
Jesus said that He has come to give life and that more abundantly, (John 10:10). So in getting to know my Lord through His Word, I have learned much truth. As the psalmist penned, “I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts” (Psalm 119:100). I have been given insight into the character, mind, will & glory of God. And a funny thing happened, in studying the Bible and in playing golf, I began to notice many similarities, many parallels, between successful living and successful golfing. For indeed golf is a spiritual game. Jesus said, he who dies shall live, good golfing says, less is more, it’s not how hard you hit it but it’s how good you hit it! Jesus said, follow me, good golfing says, keep your eye on the ball. The Bible says, in this world you shall suffer tribulation, every golfer knows that sometimes a good shot will take a bad bounce. And on & on it goes. Golf and life. Two peas in the same pod. Lot’s to think about.
Of course, I’m not the first one to notice these parallels. As a young man I remember reading the wonderful British book entitled Golf in the Kingdom by Michael Murphy. What a mystical journey that was. I can recall incorporating much of what I learned in calming myself to play better golf. Then of course, Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book was published. Limericks like “take dead aim” & “the magic move” became part of many of our golfing vocabularies as we sought to emulate that master teacher’s Zen. More recently, David Cook’s book, Golf’s Sacred Journey; Seven Days at the Links of Utopia taught me that the rhythm, balance & tempo of fly fishing (as the object lesson) has everything to do with the proper golf swing.
For indeed, golf, like life, is a head game. As has been said about life by author-pastor Joyce Meyers, “the battlefield is the mind.” So too, when asked by others what my handicap is, I often respond, “my handicap, well, it’s between my ears!”
So let’s look at some golf tips and see how they can both, make us better golfers & better people. People well fit for the Master’s use & good pleasure.
Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory, honor & power, for thou has created all things, and for your pleasure they were & are created. Revelation 4:11
Excerpts:
The 6th @ Running Y
Good Bounces
I was on the 6th hole yesterday at Running Y resort. Arnold Palmer designed it as a signature course for his power fade game. Located in the beautiful Klamath Basin, nestled below Crater Lake National Park and the Cascade mountain range, Running Y is an awesome place to spend the day golfing. Mountain, meadow & water vistas on every hole. Oh, and bald eagles flying often overhead adds to the enchantment.
So, there I was on the sixth, even par thus far and standing on the tee. The hole is lined by trees on both sides and sloped down toward the right. A big sand trap was out at 245 yards on the left and the green was 410 yards in the distance. So the plan I had committed myself to, was just as Arnie had designed this hole to be played. That is, aim toward the edge of the trap on the left and hit a slight fade envisioning the ball drifting right and rolling down the middle of the fairway toward the hole.
Well, that’s not how the shot played out. I suppose because of the added distance for my sixty one year-old swing to propel the ball, I must have over swung a bit, coming “over-the-top” sending the ball curling left toward the pine trees on the edge of the relatively wide fairway. It was looking bad, probably going to go out of bounds into one of the nice vacation home yards which lined that particular hole. I was going to be teeing it up again with the two stroke disadvantage that comes with an out-of-bounds shot for sure. But then something wonderful and unexpected happened! My ball hit the trunk of the largest Douglas fir tree, 220 yards away, at such an oblique angle that it knocked the ball to the right and forward another twenty yards. Rolling in the proper direction it stopped one yard short of the bunker with an excellent lie, ready for my next shot!
Most would call that luck, and indeed it was. But it’s also a picture, an example if you will, of God’s grace towards us. You see, we were all headed out-of-bounds. Our sin & stupidity had set our lives on a collision course with God’s holy wrath. We were headed for destruction, we were headed for outer darkness. But then along came the tree of life, along came Jesus Christ. Jesus took my sins, became sin for you and me, and hung on that tree so that you & I could live with him & the Father, filled with his spirit, forever & ever! If that’s not a good bounce, I don’t know what is!
Good bounces in golf are called grace in life. G.R.A.C.E. God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense!
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: It is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9
Grace has been called unmerited, unearned, undeserved favor. It is favor that should not have occurred, yet did. Like that good bounce, only multiplied a zillion times!
In golf we have a saying…”It’s better to be lucky than good.” But actually both is best. Skill & luck is that winning combination that allows me to go low, well below my handicap occasionally. In life, grace travels with faith on a parallel track. They are intertwined for our success. As our verse in Ephesians states, it is by grace through faith that one is saved & made whole.
In the Book of Romans we learn additional insight about what faith offers.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1
You see, peace in life comes from trusting God, not by having to figure everything out. God knows the future, I don’t. When I worry about what is to come next, I lose my peace because I am not walking in faith. I am not trusting in God. One of Solomon’s most quoted proverbs states it well;
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
God, over & over in his Word, calls us to trust him, to walk in faith in order to receive the grace that he so abundantly bestows upon us. And that’s because the price has been paid, we have been bought with a price. We have been adopted as sons & daughters into his family. And just like any mother or father, he is going to give good gifts, much mercy & outrageous love to his kids.
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:12
In the Old Testament, only the high priest, once a year, could come before God. But because of Christ, we who have embraced God’s free gift of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, well, we can come boldly to our Papa anytime we desire just as that little toddler can run up and sit on daddy’s lap, welcome & secure.
So good bounces & skill, grace & faith. The winning formula in golf & in life!
For Further Study:
Have you had a good bounce in life because of God’s grace to you? What was it?
Can Philippians 4:6-7 help you in times of worry?
Do you expect any luck to come your way when you golf? Why or why not?
Bad Bounces
A good golf course is designed to have trouble spots along the way. Traps, trees, hills, lakes & hazards are part of the interest & intrigue of playing that favorite course. So I shouldn’t be surprised when an occasional good shot ends up in a bad place. In fact, I should expect that to occur in just about every round! How boring it is to visit that course where all of the holes are the same and no matter whether your shot was a good one or just mediocre, the outcome is the same. Sort of like reading a well written mystery book. There is always going to be tension & drama before the resolution, restitution & reward at the end. If not, no one would want to spend their time reading it.
So it is with our lives. God is writing a story and you and I are the main characters. And like that good novel, stuff is going to happen along the way. Imagine how dull your life would seem if every day were a “good day.” To take this thought further, if every day were a good day, well then, there would be no “good days!” That is, one has to have some bad days in order to differentiate what is a good day! Like good bounces on the course. If every time I hit a shot, a lucky bounce occurred, believe it or not, soon that would become unexciting & mundane. It takes both good & bad bounces to make the round interesting. Same is true in life.
Jesus told us that in this world there will be tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world (John 16:33). A bad bounce followed by a really good bounce! Paul tells us via his word to Timothy that all who live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution. (2 Timothy 3:12).
Look at the Book of Job. What a tough read. Bad bounce after bad bounce. That is, until the end of the story. Then we see some really good bounces! But consider what was going on behind the scenes. Things were happening to Job because of variables he had no way of comprehending. A sort of cosmic duel between Satan & God was scripted with Job as the bullet that would hit one of the contestants. Job kept his integrity in not cursing God and in so doing knocked the Accuser off his proverbial block! Job had his moment of greatness because of his trial, because of his bad bounces. Same with Abraham. When God called our father of faith to sacrifice his son Isaac, he didn’t know that God was picturing for us three thousand years later what he was planning to do in sacrificing his own beloved Son for us. Abraham didn’t know that God would intervene and stop the sacrifice. Talk about a trial, talk about trust & obedience. I sure don’t think I could have done that! But that Genesis 22 story was Abraham’s greatest moment. And like Job & Abraham, we all will have a few of those chances for greatness during the course of a life. And they always come along side bad bounces. Whether it’s sickness or financial crises. Whether it’s job distress or natural disaster. How I navigate, how you traverse through that difficulty, determines greatness or mediocrity. Do I trust God, giving him the glory despite my circumstances and thereby become a trophy that God can show off like Job & Abraham, or do I become a little baby complainer, driving people away by my negativity and lack of faith.
You see, when bad bounces happen in life I still must remember that God is sovereign. He is in control. It’s not like God is saying, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming.” No, he’s not surprised when I have a bad bounce in life. In fact, when I read the Book of Job I learn that he allows it! Funny thing really, we all intuitively appreciate the sovereignty of God when it comes to matters in this world that are out of our control, like who will be the next President or protecting us from a falling asteroid. For without his sovereignty, this world would be a scary place indeed. But conversely, we often resent that same sovereignty when it comes to matters that are closer to home, like my health, finances and family. When things don’t seem to be smooth in my little kingdom I can resent that same sovereignty of God that I so appreciate on that larger scale. You see my point…that ought not to be. I want to trust him no matter what comes my way. Good bounces or bad. And in the end, when I do, I too, like Job & Abraham, will have a chance for greatness.
For Further Study:
When you have a bad bounce on the course what is your response? Can you think of a better way to respond? Even a more fun way to respond?
Have you ever had a Job or Abraham moment in life? How did it turn out?
Does God’s sovereignty comfort you or puzzle you? What would be a good way to respond to his control over your life?