Shedding Light

I learned a lot about life with a club in my hands and a golf ball on the grass. That sounds sort of cheesy, but it’s true. I started playing golf my freshman year of high school and played on the Varsity team through all four years — well, three and a half.

Each year had a Fall season and Spring season, and each year I would try my best to qualify for the State Tournament by getting at least three “legs,” which were qualifying scores determined by the difficulty of the course. It was usually a score of 95 for the ladies. To make a long story short, each year I would ultimately not quite make my goal to qualify for State, but each year I also got just that much closer. By the time senior year came around, I was determined and finally got three qualifying legs in the Fall season of 2019. Unfortunately, come 2020, my dreams of the State Tournament slipped away because of COVID-19.

I was discouraged for quite a while and felt as if my reward for three and a half years of hard work had vanished. Thankfully though, I was soon enlightened by a more positive perspective. I came to the realization that my reward was not in a State Tournament, but rather in the gifts that golf had given me. Despite what some might believe, golf is a difficult sport in the way that the hardest obstacle to overcome is not the course, but the mind. American golfer Bobby Jones put it perfectly when he said something like, “Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch course — the space between your ears.”

As difficult as the mental battles of golf were to overcome, eventually overcoming them was the greatest reward of all. My journey with golf in high school ultimately gifted me with increased mental strength, perseverance, durability, patience, confidence, humility, and gratitude. I am especially grateful to God because if it were not for the visualization of Him walking every step of each course with me, I would have never worked up enough courage to play and to enjoy it even in the midst of a series of bad plays or holes. I always scored a lot better, and had a lot more fun, when I simply surrendered to His peace and comfort while playing.

The perspective of cherishing these things, instead of focusing on what I had lost, put everything back into focus. Today, the fact that many of the community’s students are missing out on the sports that they love is heartbreaking. I know firsthand the impact that sports and coaches believing in you can have on a young student athlete, so my heart goes out to those students today. However, as hard as it is, I do encourage our community’s student athletes to hold onto positive perspective more than ever. It is more than okay to be discouraged but try not to dwell on what has been taken from you. Instead, center in on what has been given to you and cherish those things dearly. Let hope be your anchor and know that the future is bright.