Follow Joey as he learns more about living through the game of golf than he ever could on a therapist's couch. Learning to Live One Golf Swing at a Time is a look at the way golf grabs a hold of the player and becomes more than just a game. You can enj

Learning to Live One Golf Swing at a Time

By J. Lang

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2012 J. Lang
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-5407-5

Contents

Dedication..........................................................................vPreface.............................................................................ixAcknowledgments.....................................................................xiHole #1, Par 5: The Starter.........................................................1Hole #2, Par 4: Scorecard and a Pencil..............................................5Hole #3 Par 4: Unlucky Precision....................................................8Hole #4 Par 4: Golfing with My Wife.................................................11Hole #5 Par 3: Hole in None.........................................................15Hole #6 Par 4: The House on the Corner..............................................18Hole #7 Par 5: Taking the PAT.......................................................21Hole #8 Par 3: Teaching Junior Golf.................................................24Hole #9 Par 4: The 280-Yard Putting Stroke..........................................27Hole #10 Par 5: A New Nine..........................................................30Hole #11 Par 3: The Worst Shot Ever Hit.............................................33Hole #12 Par 4: Family Golf Trips and the Most Important Trophy.....................36Hole #13 Par 5: Golfing with Jared..................................................39Hole #14 Par 4: A Perfect Place for a Refrigerator..................................42Hole #15 Par 4: My Best Teacher.....................................................45Hole #16 Par 3: Unfinished Business.................................................48Hole #17 Par 3 The Island and My Dad................................................51Hole #18 Par 5: The Greatest Course in the World....................................54The Nineteenth Hole: Settling Up....................................................57Afterword...........................................................................61About the Author....................................................................63Coming Soon.........................................................................65

Chapter One

HOle #1, Par 5: THE STARTER

I always appreciate a good par five to get things going. There seems to be a calmer version of me standing on the first tee when I am looking down the fairway of a reachable par five shortly after the starter calls my name. Golfers, you know who I am talking about. The starter is that old retired guy in the little booth (with bad fluorescent lighting) who believes himself to wield unbelievable power over walk-on golfers. Yeah, he's that poor sucker with the thankless job of pairing the swearing crowd with the club throwers. What a great job. If only it paid enough to keep the lights on.

"The starter" is an obvious title, since without a visit to the starter's shack you don't get to play the game. In life it's not too different. In my life, there are really so many people who could carry this title. As far as golf is concerned, that title would have to be bestowed on my aunt Iris. She is the one who carried a bright-eyed, super-excited brat to his very first day on the links. I remember so much about that day that I could fill volumes—and so little about everything else at the time that it's scary. My parents were divorcing, and golf was an escape from the reality of that, if only for a little while at a time.

We were headed to play a little course in Dillon, South Carolina. My aunt was a member there, and she knew she could talk the pro shop clerk into allowing me on the course during ladies' day. I was going to caddie, according to her, and she would not let the course marshal say one bad thing about it, or he would risk losing her membership to another course. If I never said thank you to her about that, let me do that now.

Thank you, Aunt Iris.

So, at seven years of age, I was to caddie for a woman who knew her home course better than I knew my times tables—which may still be the case. I loaded her six-thousand-pound golf bag onto the cart, and off we went.

I don't remember the first hole. I wasn't playing, but I do remember checking in with the starter. To a seven-year-old, he was a god. You couldn't play on the finest grass on the planet without his initials on your receipt. He was the gateway to the course, and Aunt Iris was my gateway to golf.

When we got to the second hole, she looked over at me and said, "Are you gonna hit?"

Faster than I ever opened any Christmas present, I was on that tee box. I put my never-before-used Titleist ball on top of my never-before-used tee. I took a mighty lash at the ball and heard my aunt exclaim, "Damn!"

I don't think she knew I heard her, but that's right—the first word I heard after the first time I hit a ball on the golf course was a cuss word. She said it because I outdrove her in front of her friends. I heard it because no one in my family is any good at whispering.

And so we played. My first round of golf was sixteen holes. I didn't play the first or last holes, because those holes were too near the clubhouse and I wasn't a paying player. Maybe one of these days I'll go back and drop a twenty in the junior-program donation box.

The highlight of that day was a holed bunker shot on the tenth hole. I heard another choice word from my aunt, but this time it was either because I beat her on the hole or because I ran around that bunker celebrating so much that the rake job was going to take five minutes. She never yelled at me for that, but after she made me rake the bunker, I realized tracking up the sand trap was not the right way to celebrate.

You see, golf is full of lessons just like that bunker lesson from my aunt. It was that simple act of raking an entire bunker that helped me to respect the work done by others. I had never met the man who raked that trap before I played that day. Chances are he is no longer alive (it's been twenty-five years since then), but I learned that, throughout our lives, people work behind the scenes for our enjoyment, our safety, and our freedom. From the starter who sends us on our way to the maintenance crew who makes the course playable (I didn't say fair), may we always remember to respect the men and women who make our lives more complete.

I am eternally indebted to my aunt for helping me find the game of golf. It is through her that I found something I can be passionate in pursuing, yet if I want to, I can also just go out on a Sunday afternoon with my dad and lose a few balls.

People say golf is just a game. I only hope that golf takes hold of them as it did me. This "game" will get inside you. It will make you laugh, cry, cuss, pray, make deals with God for a putt to fall, blame a mosquito for farting in your backswing, and so many other things you'd never trade for anything. Some of my best and worst moments ever have come on a golf course. I am really looking forward to the other seventeen holes we have to play together.

HOLE #1 SWING KEYS:

Who is your starter? Who will get you in the game? If you're waiting for clearance to play, stop waiting. Whatever you are doing with your life—or your game, for that matter—will never be completed if it is not started. I am not here to dish out advice. You have to pay your own green fee in life. I am not pretending that writing a book makes it okay for me to tell you to jump right in and grab your dreams. What I am telling you is that you need...