If the game of golf is played correctly, it reminds me a lot of life.

One of the main rules in golf is you have to play the ball where it lies. Meaning that if you hit it in the sand, high weeds or up against a tree, you have to play the ball from there. There are no mulligans (a do over), foot wedges or your buddy telling you to just hit another one. I could write pages just on the rules of golf, but the overview is that you are supposed to play the ball from where it comes to rest.

In life, we sometimes make a shot (do something) that we wished we could do over. Unfortunately we have to deal with the circumstances we find ourselves in. We can’t take it back, do it over or just say, “that one didn’t count.” No, in life all the shots count and you have deal with it just as it is.

I laugh at the email recall function. Supposedly it allows you to retract an email after it has been sent. The funny part is that if you receive an email recall notification, the first thing you do if go back and closely read the first email. It may have been an email you didn’t even want to read, but the recall notification makes you want to read it. Ha

In life, you can never un-ring a bell. When you say things you shouldn’t, you can be forgiven but you can never erase it from the other person’s memory. Basically in life, like in golf, you get one shot and you have to deal with whatever the result is.

I am at best, a very average golfer and I have seen some poor shots over the years. I remember one time the guy I was playing with hit into a sand trap. He got set to hit out of the trap and flubbed the shot and it rolled back in the same spot he had just hit from. This guy thought if he hurried and hit it again it would have a better result. By hurrying he did the same thing again and then got flustered and did it a third time. It was all I could do not to laugh. I remember holding the towel over my face so he couldn’t see me laughing.

So in golf as in life, we should always be honest with our score and think through the decision before attempting it. If the shot is bad, keep your cool and settle yourself before attempting the next shot because that second shot, just as the first one, will count on the score card. Even pro golfers will make a mistake but the real test is (just like in life) whether they can recover from the mistake and go on to complete a good round. KT