Now That's a Hero

I love golf.  It might have something to do with the fact that I started playing when I was four and got pretty good at it.  When I was playing a lot I had a 4 handicap at a time when most women did not play that well.  I won the club championship when I was in my teens at Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver, Colorado.  I played tournament golf as a junior golfer and was second in the state.  I went out for the men’s golf team at the University of Notre Dame in 1975, not because I was into breaking the ranks of the men, but because there was no women’s golf team.  I came in third but later found there was no place in the budget for a woman to travel with the team so… Anyway, most of my experiences with the game were positive and I’ve played golf ever since.

I love the fact that you are outside for at least four hours, sometimes five if we get behind a group of men who believe that they are playing for the US Open at Bob-o-Link.  (Did you know statically women play faster then men.  We know we are not all that good.  You think you are and will search for a ball like it was your last.)  I love the fact that for the time you are out there, it is hard to think of anything else.  I love the fact that it is an individual sport that depends on your skill AND your psyche to succeed.  And I love the fact that you really get to know people on a golf course.  That is why so much business is done there.  You find the guy who is always so level headed at the conference table throws his clubs in the lake when he misses his approach.  You’ll see the folks who play “winter rules” well into the summer and well into the rough.  You can tell a lot about a person on a golf course.

That is why I love Rory McIlroy.  But my love affair started at the Masters in April when he blew his four shot lead and totally fell apart.  He, as far as I was concerned, took it like a professional not like the primadonnas that we so often see today.  He did not blame an injury, the pace of play, he just knew that the game beat him that day and he would be back to play again.

And play he did.  His game at the US Open was almost flawless.  He was able to keep his game perfect and his head on straight for the entire tournament and broke all kinds of records to show for it.  The same sportscasters (Johnny Miller) who said that the Masters would be a “career breaker” was now saying that he always knew Rory would come back, that his swing was so perfect. 

Rory is my new hero.  Not just because he won but because he lost huge AND won huge and could handle both.  That is the lesson of golf.  It’s just you and the game and you will have huge losses and huge successes and the total of a person is how you deal with both.   It is hard to believe that he will be corrupted by fame and fortune as we have seen so often before.  He seems to know that golf really is a game that can represent life but is not life.  He went to Haiti just before the Open to get his head straight on what was really important in life while his competitors were at the course concentrating on the game.  THAT is the measure of a hero.  He lives what is important not just gives it lip service.  Thanks, Rory.  I want your game but since I know I can’t have that, I think I will emulate the way you live and I will truly get the better part.