The (Not Really About) Golf Issue

or How many Jacks does it take to learn a lesson?

When I was growing up, my dad was encouraging about every sport I tried, but I think he would have been pretty excited if I had taken to his favorite pastime, golf. It’s not that I didn’t give it a try. Much like the one season of soccer I played in second grade or the baseball career that ended shortly after tee-ball, I gave it a few tries and decided it wasn’t for me. Something about the combination of focus required for each and every shot, a 10-year-old’s temper, and having my dad as an instructor made it hard to stick with…so I made it easy on the old guy and requested to play hockey in South Florida instead.

Last year, with the benefit of a cooling temperament and a global directive to find ways to entertain yourself in small groups outside, I came back to the game and played more golf than ever before. There were good days and bad days, celebrations and meltdowns. The same puzzles that were too much for preteen Jack were now a worthy challenge for an adult who sometimes still acts like a preteen.

To be honest, it was easy to give up then. I’d faced few real challenges in my life and wasn’t yet able to make the connection between the way you might comport yourself during a game and how that could apply to navigating other everyday scenarios. I hadn’t yet had to figure out how to head off the greater disaster after the first domino didn’t fall my way. I could let a bad shot or two implode the whole experience, safe in the knowledge that I’d get a golf cart ride out of it either way.

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One day last fall, a friend and I booked a time at a favorite local course and were paired with two strangers to round out the foursome. Shortly before teeing off, two guys my dad’s age walked up to us, and one of them asked with a thick Polish accent if either of us were named Jack. My friend, Matt, had booked our time so I knew that even if they’d seen the signup sheet that they couldn’t possibly know my name. Ready for a punchline nonetheless, I admitted that yes, my name was indeed Jack. With brightened eyes, the taller of the pair replied that they were both named Jack, too!¹

As usual, we each had our good shots and our vaguely-threaten-to-mutilate-your-ball-and-anyone-it-loves shots. The other, shorter Jack had a more limited grasp of English so Big Jack did most of the talking throughout the round. He was good natured, but he wasn’t afraid to rib us from time to time. After one of my better drives of the day, he offered praise, and when my next shot was an equally impressive mishit, he asked without the hint of a smile, “Would you allow me to offer some feedback? That was a total waste of a good drive.”

You never know who you’re going to be paired with, but there’s often camaraderie to be found with people you’d never come across anywhere else, and occasionally there’s even a little wisdom. After one particularly inventive round of invectives, Big Jack caught up to me, said, “Neither of us is good enough to be mad at ourselves,” and continued on to where his last shot had landed, leaving me to feel simultaneously like a dope and like someone who’d been set free to enjoy his day.

It became a bit of a mantra, a reclamation of “you suck.” Rather than stepping up to my ball and worrying about how badly a shot might go, I started thinking about how it didn’t really matter where the ball went. I was on a walk in the park with some friends, and I’d soon have a chance to take another, better swing. I think that’s what my dad was laying the groundwork for all those years ago, trusting me to figure out what works for me, on and off the course, and I’m glad we have a second chance to take that golf cart ride.

1. Editor’s note: However implausible that these guys were both named Jack, I was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.