Golfing with Dad

Of course, as you spend most of your time on this walk driving back and forth from your house or work to wherever dad was...you get to do a lot of reflecting on the past...

As we left the store on this dark and gloomy day, the smile on my face was as wide as the moon.

Today, my dad bought me my first driver golf club and he would not be denied his first opportunity to take me golfing to test this new club out. The rain was hard. The wind was fierce. We even saw lightning strike a power line on our way to the course. This was golf in Oregon. This was golf with dad. This was for the love of the game.

A father and son… A new club…

We arrived at the small 9 hole golf course located out in the country. The parking lot was empty. We had the whole course to ourselves as the stormy weather had kept other golfers away. The first hole was a short par 4 and straight as an arrow. A metal framed barn sat in the near distance, just past the green about 150 yards… to the left, a country road. We made our way to the green, the rain washing us clean as the wind howled past us on every side.

There we were… just dad and me.

As I stood over my ball preparing to putt, dad was shuffling through his clubs to find his putter.

“SLAM!”

The metal framed barn across the way just got hit with lightning! Too shocked to be scared, I scrambled to throw my putter in my bag. No sooner than I could do that, I turned to see what all the commotion was behind me. In a flash, several clubs had fallen out of dad’s bag. He quickly picked them up and proceeded to run faster then I have ever seen him run in my life!

Normal protocol for a kid my age was to be overwhelmed with fear. However, thanks to dad’s sprint to the club house, I found myself laughing out loud as I tried to keep up with a sprint of my own. As we arrived at the clubhouse, my dad, slightly irritated at my laughing as well as my lack of urgency, sought out a “rain-check” for another day.

We did play another course that day. We just waited for the lightning to stop.

And so it was growing up with dad.