Let us assume that everyone who made a New Year’s resolution – or at minimum adopted a gauzy guideline for some intended lifestyle change – has at least attempted to follow through with it to this point.
As a matter of full disclosure, I’ll take the under on how many of us have actually done what we vowed to do but, even if we are guilty of reverting to our old ways and regret that new gym membership or have failed miserably at dry January, there is something to be said for that spark of optimism that comes with a fresh calendar year.
It’s like showing up at the first tee. The day is full of possibilities.
Golf can be like playing the lottery – the odds are stacked against everyone but they’re still selling tickets and tee times. They’re selling the dream of something better and there’s no better time than January.
Golfers, for all of our angst, idiosyncrasies and self-loathing, are driven by, if not belief, at least by the eternal flame of hope that this will be the year when we turn the patchwork parts of our game into a quilt of which we can be proud.
It was Nelson Mandela who said, “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”
Mandela wasn’t much of a golfer but his words can be a mantra for golfers. At least until that third double bogey on the front nine or that re-emerging feeling that you might prefer a colonoscopy to another 20-yard pitch shot from a tight lie with water behind the flag.
At this point in the golf year, it’s easy to reconcile a bad round by telling yourself “It’s just January” or “It’s just February” and think of all those people who can’t play golf this time of year because of snow or cold or that old bugaboo called work.
The PGA Show is happening this week in Orlando, a sprawling display of golf possibilities. Approximately 30,000 professionals, industry types and the forever curious will be in Orlando not just to see the latest shirt styles and push carts but to glom on to the hope that attaches itself to the game and those who play it.
The PGA Show this week is, as they say, Exhibit A.
Ron Green Jr.
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