Spring and summer are when there is so much to do, or even that you can do, that you find you have to make a little time to be unproductive for a minute just to stay sane. I took one of those little moments this past weekend with my dad and sister. It wasn’t for any particular occasion, per se; Father’s Day was coming up and so was my sister’s birthday, so let’s chalk it up to that—if it needed to have a reason. 

Personally, the last week has been going by at Mach 7, and I was pleased enough to be removed from work for a few hours and enjoy what happened to be very lovely weather. 

We’ll ignore the fact that I had just finished my weekly livestock intake for the butcher shop and was coming off a three-hour spree of work in the morning. 

You can tell a lot about your golf outing by the first drive. If it’s a dud, you better take a deep breath right then and start praying for patience. Fortunately for me, my first strike sailed straight and true down a broad green fairway. And yes, it was the fairway we were playing, and not the parallel hole. 

I brought a small satchel of extra golf balls as backup for the inevitable losses that would ensue; as it turned out, I only ever needed one spare. The bag I brought would instead serve my sister quite steadily as she found her way to the peripheral regions of the intended course and even deep into the muddy depths of the water traps. Her only dismay at losing balls was when they were colorful ones that she valued over the actual game itself. 

My father was not without his vanity when it came to golf balls as well. Along the last few holes, he managed to find a silver one in the brush, which he immediately started playing as if it granted him special golfing powers and skill. Unfortunately for him, that ball disappeared into the woods to be discovered by a future golfer. 

His game, as you may surmise, did not improve with the use of the ball, which he had begun to refer to as the Millennium Falcon. 

Among our band of would-be pros, I was the least amateur, as the score would finally reflect. My dad took up second, my sister’s fiancée took third, and the pro-athlete herself took last. In her words, she held the high score.

Golfing is a game I used to enjoy with my grandparents from a young age. They took me to their local course and showed me how to practice chipping to the practice green, putting and the importance of the short game aside from the glamour of the long drives. I think they knew I would work on my drives by myself anyway. 

In any case, golf is a game that has transcended generations in my family, far from the clout of the elite; my great-grandparents enjoyed it as a common man’s game, using it as a platform for serenity and focus that they clearly brought to the rest of their lives. 

Not unlike hunting and fishing and all of the other things I enjoy out here in the country, I also enjoy a fair day at the course, combining relaxation with form, hoping and praying for a scrap of satisfaction from my efforts. I have no grand illusions of going pro, as they say. I do have two goals: To teach my children and grandchildren how to enjoy this game with their family, and to spend my retired years driving my lovely wife around in one of those golf carts, if only for her company.

The way out here, golf is just a game. But sometimes, a game can mean more than a job. To my grandparents or even my own future grandchildren, this is the time we will have spent together. God’s creation manicured into bite-sized adventures of fun times and good company, one swing at a time.