Range visit with son rekindles love for golf

[mks_dropcap style=”circle” size=”45″ bg_color=”#000000″ txt_color=”#ffffff”]I[/mks_dropcap]n early November, I pulled out my golf clubs (that prior to that had been mainly traveling with me and not doing much). I had some great times playing in high school and college, and then life happened and the time for golf disappeared. However, recently my interest in the game has rekindled.

During a vacation and a round of putt-putt the thought hit me: I need something to take me out of the rat race every now and then, to enjoy life, and find out things about myself. It helped too that my family and 7-year-old Josh showed the same enthusiasm.

So on a cold November afternoon in Franklin, N.C., at The Golf Club of Mill Creek, my son Josh and I went to the driving range. Josh loves sports. Any sports, any time. I was fortunate to have a great dad who taught me that love, and I’ve done my best to pass it along. He had a bunch of 7-year-old questions about the driving range like “where would get the balls?”, “how long could we stay?”, and “would we have a truck to pick them up in?” When we arrived we went to the range, where a couple was talking about the basics of a golf swing and hitting a few. I was thinking about how neat it is for families to enjoy golf together and have so much to talk about. Josh was ready with a ball and his driver!

I let him go first, and after some brief talk about the swing and stance, he rared back and hit one. He loves baseball, so the idea of hitting a ball that wasn’t going to move was different. “You sure it will not move, dad?” Josh asked. “Nope. You’re good take a swing,” I answered smiling. He did, and the ball went a few feet in the air in front of us — to my applause and his broad smile. “Nice first shot, Josh!” I said.

“Your turn,” Josh said. Since I was never really a great golfer to begin with, I didn’t have to worry about finding my form again. But I did manage to hit the ball not so straight but toward the 150 marker. “Great shot Dad,” Josh beamed. I thought, it is always good to have 7 year olds who haven’t played with you to build your confidence when returning to golf.

The rest of the time was like that we didn’t talk about important chores or school work to be done and I didn’t think of important work I needed to do. We enjoyed being together and hitting balls.

After it was over, Josh proudly rounded up all the range buckets and looked up me and said, “We need to do this again.” We sure did — and have.

Golf is a sport that always can come and go, or stay in your life. I certainly hadn’t completely forgotten about it during time as a sports writer covering events and every year at the Masters I get the same itch everyone else does as the music we all know comes on to announce “the tradition unlike any other” signals the start of golf. But usually the feeling died down, and I moved to something else. Not this time.

This time I’m going to keep going and playing, and thanks to good friend Duane Cross and the super group at 2Bd Media Group, I’m hoping you will take the journey with me. Western North Carolina is a great place to live and play golf. The goal of this website will be to highlight that and the people and places that make it so. And I would love to hear feedback about what should be on this site and even why golf is the sport for you.

Until next time, I hope you have a “we need to do this again” golf moment with someone you care about soon. See you on the course!