The Caddie

I used to have an alarm on my Google Calendar that chimed each morning @ 6:50 AM. It's titled,

"Be Desperate for God's Leading in Golf".  

Why?

Because, I discovered a few months ago, that the Lord "created my inmost being; you (He) knit me together in my mother's womb and that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.."  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139

​I've interpreted that to mean that; when, from the moments where I was growing in my Mom's womb, God placed in me all that He wanted and meant for me to be, according to His will, His purposes, Him.  This includes, in my innermost being, my passions and desires, ie, what I was meant to be.  I have and, you have and all created humans have a passion for something, like, a profession, an avocation, and, as long as that passion/desire is not immoral, that the Lord has placed that passion/desire in our very being.

Can golf be that passion/desire?  Ask Tom Lehman, ask Keegan Bradley or Ben Crane and, by the way and you might see or hear a bit of passion.

So, I believe the Lord placed a passion/desire for the game of golf in my innermost being.

When I was just 8 years old I was riding my bike past a beautiful looking "park" or "field". I wasn't quite sure what it was at the time, but, I saw a bunch of older kids sitting around the front of the big "house" that was at the center of the "park" and I rode by and asked them what they were doing.

"Caddying" was the answer.

"What's that?" was my question.

"Just shut up and sit down if you wanna caddie."  So, I sat down.

Two weeks later and, after sitting for most of that time when I could go down there, a very interesting thing happened;

I could see this tall, confident man with a golf hat, white shoes and huge forearms walking toward the caddies. I thought, this guy must have been a bad dude because all the caddies scattered.  

I didn't know better.

"Who wants to shag?"  He boomed out.  Honestly, there was, literally no one within hailing distance but me, so, I jumped up and said, "I will."  I could hear the smirking and laughter from around the building, but, for the first time in two weeks, I was given something to do other than sitting and not being talked to, nor caddying, whatever that meant.

This man ushered me over to the other side of the street from the caddie station to a huge open park area with all kinds of golf balls perched on the beautifully mowed grass.  "Stand right about here and as the balls are hit from my student, you go and pick them up, put 'em in this leather bag and trot up to me with them when I call you in."

"Sure, Sir."  My thought; what the heck is he talking about?  Well, I found out as I stood out there and chased balls all afternoon and "trotted" back to the tee (I found out that was where he was standing with his students).  At the end of the day he called me in and handed me $10 bucks, I believe, and said; "Wanna do this again tomorrow?"  "Yes, Sir.  What time would you like me here?"  "See you at 10 AM."

For the next few weeks, I "shagged" for the "Pro" of the Belmont Country Club, Belmont, Massachusetts almost every day. One day, it looked like one of his students didn't arrive and he called me up to the tee.  "Have you ever hit a golf ball?"  "No, Sir."  "Would you like to learn how?"  "Yessir, I sure would, but I don't have any clubs."  "Here, he said, you can use this one.  Ok, just come over here, stand this way.  Take your hands and ......."

I WAS HOOKED!!!!!

So, I'm thinkin', now, that this was the beginning of what God had put in me as a passion, because, now, at 71 years old, the game of golf, everything about it, is my passion, but, along the way, God replaced the desire to play golf for myself with a desire to serve Him and introduce Him to any golfer or anyone else I came in contact with.

From my Mom's womb.  Go figure.....

In Him2

Bill