Golf is a great game, a game for a lifetime, but it can embody a much larger contribution to one’s life. Hidden within a sport that requires physical performance and skill development, resides an experience which includes strategy, recovery technique, frustration and very importantly – FUN! This all occurs with the companionship of one, two or three other adventurers who share with you what the course and weather bring to you fresh each day.
Most frequently you will play this game with at least one new acquaintance, unless you are one of the lucky few that always has 4-friends to join you. If you play 18-holes your small band of golfers will spend the next 4 to 5 hours together. You will hear during the round comments of encouragement or shared enthusiasm for good plays and sympathy and commiseration with unwanted results, and most often kidding and tormenting and laughing – yes laughing!
Your body will move in directions that your daily routines do not require, you will move walking to and from your shots, but most importantly you will MOVE! You will move within the boundaries of incredibly beautiful surroundings as God watches you and you take in the magnificence of God’s creation.
When the round is over you will shake hands with your new friends or your old ones, but the bond between you will be stronger for the 4.5-hour mutual adventure.
You need this! Or you need something similar in your life. You need to be with other people. You need to be part of a group. You need new experiences in your life. You need to move and exercise. You need to laugh and you need to have fun!
Loneliness is at epidemic levels in the United States. Depression and chronic disease are as well. You may be experiencing these issues which have befallen you without your consent. I am suggesting that you would do well to be very intentional about making changes to your lifestyle that are fun, while changing your circumstances. There is an axiom in golf that says whatever you do, improve your situation. If you are in the rough, get out of the rough. You may not hit a perfect shot, but advance your circumstance and improve your situation. If you land in a sand trap, get out of the sand trap. Maybe not a great shot, but you’re out and closer to the hole.
If you are not engaged in physical activity, get a golf lesson. If you improve to the point of wanting to play better, join a golf clinic where you will share the frustration and joy of being with 6-10 others who are just like you. If you improve to feeling you want to play out on the course, you now have made contact with fellow students with whom you can share the adventure. When you start hitting the good shots that make you say to yourself, “wow! – I didn’t think I could do that!” Play more. Get additional lessons, practice more. The joy gets better and better, the friendships get larger and stronger, your health gets better and better and your outlook on life gets rosier and rosier!
You may be saying to yourself that this would have been good for me if I would have learned to play in my 20’s or 30’s or 40” s but time has passed me by. I would like to tell you that you are categorically wrong! Golf instruction has changed significantly over the years, and the new technical teaching is much more easily learned today. You can do this! The new equipment also makes learning easier and courses are accommodating those new to golf by offering more clinics focused on those who need to learn the basics-quickly! The courses even offer the opportunity to play 3-holes or 6-holes or 9-holes to be able to wean into the experience.
I have been enthusiastic to encourage more people of my vintage and younger to try to see if golf can work its magic for them. In an effort to get more people to hear me, I set out on a journey with the PGA to do so. The PGA offers a test of golf performance called the PAT or Playability Test, which enables those who pass to pursue a career with the PGA in teaching and promoting golf. The test is 36-holes, played the same day, back-to-back with a target score that needs to be met. I felt that if I could pass this at my age, others might see that golf may be “in the cards” for them. Most often people need to take the test multiple times to pass as it isn’t easy and the stress of it is crazy. It took me 3-times to pass it, but in October I was one for 4 out of 36 to pass at the age of 77. I am told I am the oldest in the country to pass it by 12-years; but the big point is age is not always a limiting factor!
I would encourage you to put limiting and negative thoughts aside, and give golf a try. Every course has instructors who routinely help people just like you to learn to love the game. Inexpensive Clinics generate rapid results. Four to six 2-hours clinics are fun and most often prepare even those never attempting golf before to get ready to play.
The next time you drive by a beautiful golf course near you please know that within the confines of that place are people who want to meet you, who want to help you, who want to share adventures on the course with you. There are healthy, happy people that want to encourage you and kid you but maybe best of all – laugh with you as you become one of the legions of golf enthusiasts that gets healthier, both mentally and physically while undertaking the task of embracing a game for a lifetime!
Fred Seabright
PGA Associate
Golf Instructor, Makefield Highlands Golf Course
Lower Makefield, PA
Fred Seabright
215-287-0775
Fred Seabright is a retired Fitness Equipment Salesman who was encouraged by Dave Smith a PGA Golf Professional to pursue a career with the PGA in helping others to learn to play the game and enjoy all of the unseen benefits that reside within the wonderful game of golf. Although he was nearly 3-times the age of others pursing the same course, he was supported by PGA professionals to dismiss the concerns of age which helped him achieve his goal.
Fred Is a Golf Instructor at Makefield Highlands in Lower Makefied and teaches New to Golf-Group Clinics as well as personal instruction.