The Scorecard Didn’t Matter

Last Saturday, I got to do something I haven’t done in several years. I played golf with all three of my boys—Cory, Blake, and Brandon.

That probably doesn’t sound particularly remarkable. Four guys played a round of golf. It happens every day. But it had been a long time since the four of us had been on a golf course together, and I had forgotten just how much fun it is.

We played a two-man scramble, two of us against the other two, which meant there was absolutely a competitive element to the day. We kept score, we knew where we stood, and nobody was pretending that winning didn’t matter. Put four competitive guys on a golf course, split them into two teams, and suddenly a six-foot putt can feel considerably more important than it probably should.

But looking back on the day, the score is almost an afterthought. What I remember is how much we laughed.

Golf has a wonderful way of giving you confidence and taking it away almost immediately. You can hit one beautiful shot and become briefly convinced that, after all these years, you have finally figured out the game. Then you walk to the next ball and golf politely informs you that you have not.

There is a specific kind of humility that only a golf course can produce, and Saturday delivered it generously to all four of us at various points throughout the round. That is one of the things I love about the game. Nobody gets to feel too good about themselves for very long.

Saturday also gave me another realization, although I’m not sure I’m quite as happy about this one. I can no longer hit the ball as far as my boys. All three of them can get up on the tee and send it farther down the fairway than I can. I’m not exactly sure when this happened. I certainly don’t remember being consulted about it.

The problem is that some part of my brain still believes I should be able to keep up with them. So instead of accepting the golf game I have today, I occasionally try to play the golf game I had years ago. I swing a little harder, reach for a few extra yards, and convince myself that the old man can still get one out there with them. Saturday provided fairly convincing evidence that this may not be the best strategy.

I’m learning, slowly, that I have to adapt my game—to play smarter, use the things I can still do well, and stop getting frustrated because my drive doesn’t finish next to theirs. I understand this perfectly well in theory. My ability to actually do it on the course Saturday was considerably less impressive.

Somewhere in the middle of the round, Blake stepped up to the tee to hit his drive. Just as he started his swing, Cory made a fart noise.

There really isn’t a more sophisticated way to write that sentence.

The timing was perfect. Blake started laughing and completely shanked his drive. That was pretty much it for the rest of us. Whatever concentration or competitive seriousness we had at that moment disappeared, and the four of us were laughing like a bunch of kids.

I suppose there are families who would have handled the situation with greater maturity. We are apparently not one of those families.

And maybe that is one of the things I enjoyed most about the day. My boys are grown men now. We all have jobs, responsibilities, families, schedules, and plenty of serious things in our lives. But put the four of us together on a golf course, let one of them make a fart noise at exactly the wrong—or perhaps exactly the right—moment, and apparently not that much has changed.

I have been a father for a long time now. Long enough to know that the moments you plan for are rarely the ones that stay with you. It’s the ones you didn’t see coming—the ones that happen in the middle of something ordinary, when nobody is trying to make a memory, and somehow one gets made anyway.

That is what Saturday became for me. Not because we did anything extraordinary. We played golf. We hit some good shots and plenty we would have liked back. We competed, gave each other a hard time, and laughed at things four grown men probably shouldn’t find nearly as funny as we did.

And for a few hours, all three of my boys were right there with me.

When your kids are young, you spend so much of your life taking them places. Practices, games, school, church activities, friends’ houses—you pile everybody into the car and go. Somehow, while you’re living it, you don’t realize there will come a time when getting everybody together will become the exception instead of the routine.

Then they grow up. They have careers, families, responsibilities, and schedules of their own. Getting Dad and his three sons onto the same golf course becomes considerably harder than it used to be.

At the end of the round, we walked back to my truck. I don’t remember exactly how it started. One of them said something, or I did, and before I knew it we were all hugging in the parking lot next to the truck. Four grown men, still in their golf shoes, not particularly caring who saw.

We knew our final score. We knew which holes went well and which ones we’d like back. We were four competitive guys playing a two-man scramble, after all.

And for the record, my team lost.

But standing in that parking lot afterward with Cory, Blake, and Brandon, I couldn’t help thinking that I had won anyway.

I had spent an afternoon on a golf course with all three of my boys for the first time in several years. I watched them hit drives farther than mine. We competed, gave each other a hard time, laughed until it hurt, and finished the day with four grown men hugging next to a truck in their golf shoes.

I lost the golf match.

But I won the day.

The scorecard mattered. It just wasn’t what mattered most.