The Backswing

I'm weaker, slower, and less fit. So why am I playing better than ever?

Last week, I golfed 18 holes for the first time in fourteen years.

I’ve always enjoyed golf. I like being in nature. I like that you can play the game your entire life. I like that the more I let go, the better I play. I like that the only person who can beat me is myself. But over the last decade and a half, I just didn’t have time. I was working and living and raising a family.

So, it was interesting to me that I played better than I used to, and I started wondering, why is that? By all accounts I’m weaker, slower, and less fit.

I realized that life had changed me. Not muddling through, not white-knuckling through; but through the living, the feeling, and finding what it was trying to teach me.

I know myself better now. I like myself better now.

That’s how it works, I think.

Now my mental settings are different. My motivations are different. My care of what people think of me is different.

I didn’t know that time itself could remake my golf swing in the same way that it’s made me a different person.

You might be wondering what this has to do with my backswing.

Line up. Deep breath. Straight back. Eyes on the ball. Straight through. That’s it. That’s all I’m thinking about.

I’ve let go of the outcome, the people who may be watching; and most of all the last shot I made.

I’m choosing to be present.

And somehow, by letting go, I made my first par 3. That kind of presence, it lets you stop getting in the way of yourself.

What are you still holding onto 15 years later that make that last shot seem so important?

I’m taking in the smell of the greens, the kindness of strangers who get paired up with us, and the lessons from everyone who is playing.

I’m taking the joy from the moment and hoping to stretch out these sessions where my family, as it is now, is out together for a few hours in the beauty of nature.

These times, these days will not last forever, so I will savor them. I will care more about everyone being together and less about whether I hit the perfect tee shot.

No man walks in the same river twice. – Heraclitus