Golf is a game of precision. To illustrate just how precise it is, I’ll use Tiger Woods as an illustration. At the age of twenty-seven he is, hands down, the best golfer in the world. But for the last two years he has been in a steady struggle with his swing that has left him frustrated and increasingly off the leader board. It has been noted more and more of late that there is a correlation between his god-like success of a few years ago and his two-year slide which is - he fired his coach. When Tiger had Butch Harmon as his swing coach he was a machine on any golf course; he was pure poetry with a club. Without Butch Harmon he has lost his swing. Precision. I related this to my oldest son, Jamie, who is just starting to play and is a bit frustrated. Even the best in the world needs a coach.

So, now that Jamie and Patrick, my 8-year-old son, have suddenly found an interest in golf, I am trying to convince them they can’t be self-made in the game. There is wisdom in listening to their dad. Jamie, who has the golf bug, asked me to play on Father’s Day. This is a dream come true for me. I didn’t take up the game till in my middle thirties so finally to have a couple of my children interested at a much younger age is glorious. This all started when I got out some old junior clubs and a box of balls for my younger boys to hit. Now, when I come home there are clubs and golf balls all over the yard, as well as kids I don’t even know bouncing golf balls off houses, fences, into flower beds and all around my house. I was outside the other day and I noticed that cars were stopping a hundred yards away from my house before they made a run for it to the corner. It is beautiful, yet, because it was getting dangerous we had to move our practice to the schoolyard before I had to replace windows and fix dents in cars.

At any rate, Jamie and Patrick took me to play golf for Father’s Day. It was Patrick’s first time on the links and it was magic. After two holes however, I was so frustrated I couldn’t see straight. Patrick was running amuck down the fairway kind of wind-milling the ball along. Jamie was asking me why his ball kept going to the left. Was it his alignment? His form? His swing? Meanwhile, I was trying to concentrate on my own game, and the ball was doing strange things. I realized I had no idea of where the ball was going. With one eye I was trying to watch Patrick, and with the other, I was trying to see if anyone was behind us giving us dirty looks. I was thinking about Jamie’s swing and trying to help him and then, when I tried to become one with a shot, my mind was everywhere but at rest. Golf is a game of precision that demands total concentration and I realized after a couple of bogies that my mind was anything but focused. I had let chaos into my ideal world of golf and solitude. At this point, I decided I had two options. I could go back to my world of golf with competent people, who can play reasonably well, or I could play with my sons coaching them and realizing there is much more at stake in this process than whether I shoot well or not.

Coming to the realization of the latter, I was at peace when I arrived at the next tee box while simultaneously trying to coach Jamie, teach golf etiquette to Patrick and keep Jamie from clubbing Patrick when he decided to start taking practice swings in the middle of Jamie’s back swing. Then, I found myself losing it again. I knew this because Patrick saw the look on my face and asked me, “Why are you frustrated, Dad?” I wondered to myself, “Why don’t I ever learn? I am in the midst of the one of he most glorious times of my life, playing a game that, if I take the time to teach my sons, we can play together even when I am old and gray.” This is the beginning of a dream of three generations of Hollands meeting regularly on a tee box to share a big piece life. As I thought about that, my stress started to dissipate. Then, just as we reached the green, Jamie began shouting at Patrick because he was wind-milling a putter through the air not ten feet from where he stood over what was potentially his first par putt, and again, I realized if I didn’t do something Patrick was going to have a putter wrapped around his neck! It is not an easy thing to keep an eight-year-old, who is just glad to be on a golf course, silent and waiting patiently for his turn. My birdie putt from thirty feet comes up ten feet short.

Our game goes on like this for two hours. It was messy, it was frustrating, and at times I just wondered if it was worth it. But also, it was ecstasy. At one point I heard Jamie explaining to Patrick, who was so discouraged because he was the worst player there, that because he is starting so much younger than either of us he will one day beat our pants off. I watched Patrick light up and I smiled. Or, standing on a par three, watching Jamie hit a perfect nine iron with a slight draw up onto the green of a par three and I couldn’t believe it as I told him, it was the best golf swing and shot he had made yet.. On the ride home, Patrick told me it was the most fun he has ever had. Yes, this is golf, this is life, and this is ministry-messy, exasperating, taxing, beautiful, and glorious! If we truly believe in relationships, community and real friendship it will always be like this—life on life, showing others a vision of glory we have seen, felt, experienced. If shared with others, you will enter a glorious mess. Keep it to yourself and your scores may be better, but who will you play with when you are old?