The weather is gradually warming, and spring is showing signs of sticking around a while. That is lucky for me, since there is a driving range between my house and where I work. It serves as a relaxing buffer between the two settings.
Once every week or two, I am able to hit a bucket of balls before I head home for the evening to be with Meg and Jamie. I recently wrote about how life is a game for 2-year-olds. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s a lot that can be learned from a game.
I’ve hung onto that mentality some, myself. I love playing golf, but I’m not too good at it. I really love a game of chess. Anything you have to think your way through to beat your opponent interests me. And of course I love watching baseball, football and basketball.
When I’m on the driving range and not the golf course, I need a way to turn hitting a bucket of balls into a game, rather than spraying aimlessly a dozen different directions. My last few trips I’ve taken my pitching wedge and tried to hit as many balls onto an elevated green about 100 yards away as possible.
I am definitely improving my approach game, landing at least a portion of the balls in the proximity of where I intended to put them. It gives me a singular focus and an outcome to strive for in each swing.
There is a parenting metaphor in here. Not every ball is going to go where you intend. When you are the parent of a 2-year-old, not every situation is going to go as planned. For instance, I may want to feed him chicken for dinner. But two bites in, he may decide he wants Gold Fish. No pizza. No hot dog. It’s the parenting version of a hook shot. You have to have a short memory, because you can’t be thinking about your mistakes on the last swing.
Sometimes you want to hurry up and take your son to grandma and grandpas before work, and the second that you buckle him in, he tells you that he pooped. This is when you face the reality that your morning is going to start later than you thought it would. Slice
Pizza sauce in the hair. Hook. The front room looks like a toy bomb went off. Slice. As he laughs and runs around it’s like a ball straight on the green. As he sings the ABCs and counts to 10 it’s like he put one right next to the pin.
As I left the range earlier this week, the elevated green had a lot more golf balls on it than when I arrived. I don’t count how many hit. I started to, but that’s a big bucket of balls and I felt a bit neurotic.
The bottom line is that some of these golf balls will go where you planned. You may even have a shot or two that make you feel really good. Then there’s those that frustrate you, and they may leave you wondering how you could miss so badly.
The messy diapers, the unpredictable temper tantrums, and the wild and erratic behavior—they’re all par for the course. No matter how well you’re hitting those golf balls, some days it’s just best to enjoy the sunny weather and being able to play the game.
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