Lessons That Come Along With It
Starting out young
Growing up in Tupper Lake, I spent many summer days at the Golf Course swinging away. When I was little I attended the children’s clinic that the course puts on, and in high school I was on the golf team. Besides that I would go up many of times with my parents and try to get better. It was always so peaceful up there, and I loved driving the golf carts! However it wasn’t until my later years of golf that I realized how lucky we are to have such a great 18-hole course right in town. Nestled in-between mountains, our course has great views everywhere you look.
Live and Learn
I didn't know it at the time, but golf taught me many life lessons over the years. Patience is probably one of the biggest. Being a soccer and basketball player, golf was obviously a slower and more time consuming sport for me. In the beginning I would just walk up to the ball and whack it. Forget about picking a club, wiping off the ball, or even aiming. Who needed to do that? This was probably the first thing that was changed about my golf game. Taking the time to think about the play, and think about what the best shot would be, was something I had to work on. I wanted to get my round over as fast as possible. Once I learned patience on the golf course, I saw a dramatic change (for the better) in my golf game. Patience is indeed a virtue.
Another life lesson golf taught me was honesty. In most cases, the person you are playing with is focusing on their game and not yours. At the end of the hole when you tell each other your scores, it is very easy to take off a stroke or two to make your score better. If at the end of the round you have the lower score and you win, did you really win? Cheaters never win!
Lastly golf has taught me persistence. The only way to get better is to play. If you have a horrible round on Monday, the only way to fix it is to get back up there Tuesday and play another round. Golf is something that will never be mastered, not even by Tiger Woods. I can still hear my father saying, “Okay, swing again” every time I would miss the ball when I was little. He was right, and if I had stopped swinging out of frustration back then, I would not have a life long sport to play now.
See you on the greens
I encourage parents to look into the children’s clinic at the course this summer. On Wednesdays at ten o’clock the pros up at the course give free lessons to kids of any age, or skill level. Get your child started young, they could be the next Tiger!
When booking your next vacation to Tupper Lake, give the Tupper Lake Golf Course a call at 518-359-3701 and find out what else the course has to offer.