ON GOLF LESSONS

I remember reading somewhere that golf is a game of "almosts" - that even if you get a birdie on a hole, you'll spend the rest of the day thinking about the eagle you almost got, had the ball only bounced differently. Or, in my case, the par I almost got had the putt rolled a little differently. The key after the round, I suppose, is to focus on what DID go well, rather than dwell on what could have been better, had a little thing only gone more in your favor.

There are a million factors to take into account - distance from the hole, wind speed, angle of the ground, whether you have an audience...and all of them seem to matter. Honestly, I marvel that anyone anywhere has made a hole in one, because there's such a "butterfly effect" - even a slight wind gust can push your ball a different way.

It's a lesson in acceptance on a micro scale. The shot has been hit, and once it leaves the club, you have no control over it (despite my attempts at body languaging the ball so it goes where I want). So many things in life are like that, things that we can't control after a certain point. I guess it's on all of us to keep track of where things are going - even if it happens to be off two trees and into the weeds. That's a metaphor.

Dad joke: or a meta-FORE!