God Carries a One Iron: A Christian Approach to Golf

"After reading this book, I've decided to try golf again but, far more important, I have a new and fresh understanding of how God is the God of the universe, my life, my work...and even golf.

Read it and give it to your friends. You'll be glad you did."

--Steve Brown, radio broadcaster, seminary professor and author, KeyLife.org

God Carries a One Iron:

A Christian Approach to Golf

By Jim Southard

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 Jim Southard

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Golf is an Invitation reprinted with permission of NIKE™, Inc.

Dedicated to James H. Southard, who put clubs in my hands and Jesus in my life.

Table of Contents

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION: Of Nike Ads and Other Details

Into Dusty Corners

Solomon in the Rough

A Place for Everything, and Everything in it's Place

A Better Golfer

A BRIEF THEOLOGY OF GOLF

Just a Game?

The Play’s the Thing

Trees are Our Friends

God Can Hit a One-Iron

The Duffer in the Mirror

True Lies

Golf in His Kingdom

And in the End

THE PURPOSE IN THE GAME

What's the Big Idea?

Golf is not a Game of Comatose

As for Me

The Presence

THE PURPOSE IN THE PEOPLE

The Other Game

The Weird Round

Just Like Friends

MAN-CENTERED GOLF

Godless Chatter

Upon This Rock

GOD-CENTERED GOLF

Credit Where Credit is Due

Plan for Providence

It's Still Golf

THE VICES

Sin Is

Sin Is . . . What?

Show Me The X-Ray

Playing Broken

THE VIRTUES

5-Irons Into Plowshares

The State of the Art

The Trouble with God Guys

Decorum Deo

The Extra Mile

AN EXPENSIVE WALK: GOLF AND MONEY

Mommy, There's a Monster in My Golf Bag

Spending on Purpose

Tightwad Golf

Walk is Cheap

THE GAME THAT ATE THE WORLD: GOLF AND TIME

The Big Rocks

An Ax to Grind

All In the Family

NOTHING MORE THAN FEELINGS

Emotional Gumbo

Notions on Emotions

OUR HIGHEST CALLING

It's About Time, It’s About Space

Are You Paying Attention?

The Quality Time Myth

Sunday Best

YOU SHALL BE . . .

Witness Happens

By Appointment Only

Treasure in Jars of Clay

A Little Help

Preface

If you are caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a one-iron. Not even God can hit a one-iron.

Lee Trevino

My first memories of golf bring me back to my childhood front yard in North Miami Beach, Florida. A professional tournament on television probably prompted me to venture outside to hunt down a long stick from a neighborhood umbrella tree. Then, anything resembling a small ball was fair game. Soon I was perforating my mother's precious zoysia grass with divots.

By my ninth birthday I was ready for the real deal--a half set of used ladies' clubs. I can still feel the red, rubber grips in my mind. I still hear the clanging of the trailer door at the Hollybrook Golf and Tennis Club in Pembroke Pines--at the time still under construction--but hosting an invasion of youngsters from the North Miami Department of Recreation. I didn't come on the bus with the rest. My mom brought me. This was serious! I risked the grave embarrassment of being seen among peers with my mom just to be sure and get there on time. Her involvement would also secure a Yoo-Hoo (in glass) when the clinic was over. I can still taste those Yoo-Hoos.

Golf is a thing I do.

This book starts where golf occupies a significant part of my life. Golf takes up a portion of my time, my money and my energy. Since I entrusted my life to Christ at the age of sixteen I have been engaged in justifying golf's position in my life in some way or form. When this life is done and up for eternal scrutiny, where will golf be? When it's all compiled, I will have likely spent two to four years of thinking, practicing and playing golf.

I am writing this because I want to apply to the game of golf the same thing that I've applied to every other part of my life--the redemptive work of Jesus.

But, while this is a documentation of God's work in my mind concerning golf, I recognize I'm not alone. Other golfers are at work rendering every thought captive to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). According to Lois Hains, Associate Editor of Golf Digest, there are 50.7-million golfers worldwide, and nearly 25-million of them are in the United States. According to a Gallup survey there are 59-million American Evangelical Christians in the United States. Making rough work of the percentages, we can estimate that there are probably around 6-million American, Evangelical Christian golfers.

To some extent this is where theology puts on Footjoys. This book is for the Christian golfer who loves golf and wants to explain so in terms that will honor God. Are you that golfer? Perhaps you have had a world-view collision with the new-age-oriented, pop psychology that permeates many golf help books. Maybe you wonder if the presence of the Holy Spirit can be found on the links. You like golf for it's incomparable beauty, but reserve your love for Christ.

Then this book is a challenge to the Christian golf enthusiast to submit his enthusiasm to the Lordship of Christ and a help in learning God's perspective on the use and enjoyment of this and other games.

As you read you will find some chapters of more use or interest than others--not because you and I don't share the same matters of practical theological and moral concern on the golf course, but because we don't necessarily deal with all these issues at the same moment in life. You may find use in coming back to specific chapters to tailor this book's contents to your own situation.

There are a handful of golf books out there written from the Christian perspective. Most are either Christian devotionals drawing on the golf/life analogy and showing you how life is similar to golf, or they are inspirational biographies. God Carries a One Iron is not primarily a devotional nor a biography, but a direct application of historic Christian theology, from an Evangelical perspective, to the golfing lives of golfers like you and me. The truths here take their place alongside the reflections of these other books, but in a different way. Still, they are meant to shape the golfing heart just as well.

I hope that as you read you will find the material universally applicable to every Christian golfer regardless of age, sex, shape, color or handicap. My wife asked if this book would try to legitimize golf and frighten Christian women struggling in their marriages. (Mind you, we discuss such matters in caring tones.) I certainly don't intend to make golf any more or less than it is. Rather, I hope to deal with golf as an activity that may be used for good or evil.

Indeed, a heart not submitted may unwittingly wield golf as a weapon against Christ's Kingdom. But my prayer is to give it back to the Lord for His glory. This should heal the home. Besides, the days when golf was limited to the white male are nearly a forgotten era.

Please enjoy this book. I hope that as you read it you find your imagination running overtime--looking for fresh ways in which you may meet the True and Living God on the green and through the rough.

Chapter 1

Introduction:

Of Nike Ads and Other Details

" . . . and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

(2 Corinthians 10:5)

The following advertisement ran for Nike Air Max2 Shoes:

Golf is an invitation.

To say hello to solitude.

To concede a three-foot putt for a halve.

To turn a six into a three.

To turn a three into a six.

Golf is an invitation.

To rejoice in the 60-yard sand shot.

To decline the offer of a mulligan.

To ignore winter rules.

Golf is an invitation.

To hear the trees.

To play well and know it's going to end;

To play poorly and think it's never going to end.

To feel the grass.

Golf is an invitation.

To cheat. (But you wouldn't do that to the game, would you?)

Golf is an invitation.

To know God.

To hit it farther than anyone could ever hit

a baseball and not have to run afterwards.

To know Satan.

To hit a one-iron (See: To know God.)

Golf is an invitation.

To play from the tips.

To be Nick Price.

Golf is an invitation.

To ask your soul, Mind if I join you?

Golf is an invitation.

You are invited.

I can hear the cynical voices:

"That was an ad for a shoe? That was an ad for something that you step on all day long? Old shoes smell bad! My feet live in shoes! Shoes step on stuff--wet stuff! Why is this so serious? I thought golf was supposed to be fun?"

I have had some concern that writing a book about the spiritual side of golf might evoke just that kind of response--that kind of incredulity or skepticism. However, I confess that when I came across that ad I hitched for a moment. I stopped to breathe it in. It touched a nerve. The manner of language struck me. I thought this was an ordinary pastime. Could it be that golf deserves such veneration and reverence?

I believe the hesitation to think of golf, or any other avocation as having anything to do with one's spiritual condition comes from an incorrect assumption that the things we do have nothing to do with what we are. In other words, we tend to relegate our faith to theory only. We easily allow golf to invade our minds as we sit in a church pew, but going the other direction--inviting God into the golfing realm--well, that's a stretch . . . or is it?

Into Dusty Corners

Is golf spiritual? While some balk at the notion, I think that would be an understatement! To say it is not is to fence off the time and space boundaries of the golf course from God's presence and influence, and to do that is neither safe nor possible. As Christians, our hobbies and recreations don't receive the spiritual attention the rest of our lives get. Perhaps we think of those areas the way we think of those corners of our yards that never get mowed, or those befouled crannies in our car's dashboard that we leave to the guy who does the interior details. Yes, this is about detail.

It's not that the category golf belongs in a Christian man or woman's personal library any more than anything else does. In many respects what we examine here is just as applicable to you if you do tennis, badminton, photography or cheese grater collecting. Our concern here is pausing long enough as believers to examine one of life's details--a close look at a corner to see if the saving influence of Jesus Christ has reached it. Pat Morley writes in his book, Walking with Christ in the Details of Life, Of what earthly value is Christianity if it leaves no indelible mark on one's lifestyle? . . . we must learn how to surrender, to submit to Christ in the details of daily life.¹

Golf is something many Christians do a lot, and yet in doing it, often fail to connect it to God's work in their lives. We golf (and do many other things) for long periods and we do it repeatedly. We think about it at work, at home, and at church. We read about it. We practice it. We convince ourselves that we are Tiger Woods. We even sneak in a round of it on our office computers. In all of this, where is the Lord? Where are our hearts, minds and souls?

I'm not hoping to add Christ to Golf. He's not another consumer item in the back of the Edwin Watts golf catalogue. He's our most intimate friend, and with us always. He's to be forever the central locus of our being. Yet God engages us in our ordinary living. Jesus prayed to His Father, My prayer is not that you take them out of the world (John 17:15). God's Word gives no special mention of golf, nonetheless throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus demonstrated interest in men and women where they were and began to change them in that context.

Jesus didn't come to save your golf game, but it's correct to say that God's greatest gift to your golf game is the salvation of your soul. We'll see that unfold as we go.

I know this is not as worthy a theological topic as something like Infralapsarianism vs. Supralapsarianism (those are real things, by the way), but the reality is, we golf! If we judged the profundity of a thing by the attention it's given with our time, money and thought, then golf would be right up there with other important theological preoccupations like American Erastianism (yes, that's a real thing too).

Solomon in the Rough

Do you think King Solomon would have played golf? He may have. He did just about everything else. About golf I know he would have said, I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun (Ecclesiastes 2:11). Maybe you have said this about your game (I'm always surveying what my hands had done after a bad putt). Solomon would have had perimeter-weighted, lightweight, titanium everything, but he would never lose perspective.

Let's be realistic about golf. Golf is meaningless. Everything is meaningless--wisdom, pleasure, folly, hard work, riches--meaningless. Now, I only say that on the authority of the God, through Solomon, in the Scriptures.

Frankly, from the natural man's perspective such a statement grates me. However, it's Solomon's pithy perspective here that allows us to admit this about golf as well--and what an odd relief it is. From an eternal perspective golf is a bizarre preoccupation--but then again, so is everything else on Solomon's list. Golf is no more or less meaningless than any other earthly pleasure. I need not promote it or defend it. Golf is merely among those worldly doings that may wander into a saint's life needing a proper place.

Solomon's conclusion on the matter is this: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man (Ecclesiastes 12:8). Golf is not evil, just meaningless. So, our task is not to root out golf because it's pagan, but to approach it with hearts that are God-centered, redeem it for His glory and give it meaning.

Upon entering the promised land God didn't ask the Israelites to uproot the Canaanite vineyards and olive groves because they had not planted them, but he did admonish them to fear the Lord and serve Him with all faithfulness (Joshua 24:13, 14). He indeed meets us where we are, but does so to make us into the likeness of His Son who was about His Father's will. In this vein I paraphrase one pastor whom I heard say, It is an abomination to know more about fishing, hunting, baseball and other recreations than God. If you can track a deer and can't track your way through the Psalms, something's wrong with you.

Golf is good when it has a proper place. It's one of many things God gives us. Therefore, we do well to receive it, and then return it. The Scripture is filled with examples of giving things which were of great value and which God desired. Abel gave. Hannah gave her child Samuel to the life of the priesthood. King David refused to give a sacrifice that didn't cost him. The magi visiting the newborn King gave the items of most value to them. We must give to God our most valued things in life--our greatest treasures. What do you have? A future? A career? A family? Energy? Physical strength? An MD? A Phd? A mind? A 290-yard drive?

I suspect that if you have read this far, you treasure golf. Give it.

A Place for Everything, and Everything in its Place

In 1979, at the age of seventeen I graduated from Miami Norland Senior High School where I had maintained a nine-handicap and the number-four position on what had been a very good golf team. I was young in my newfound faith in Christ and golf was not yet a topic of my spiritual analysis, though it had long been a serious interest. Once I graduated I all but abandoned the game. I wanted to go to the University of South Florida. Pursuing a golf scholarship with that institution seemed out of reach for me and no small college out there really juiced me.

It didn't take long for me to discover that a golf life without a golf team was expensive. Bankrolling my own golf outings as a freshman in college was not going to happen. The expense snuffed me out. Even after I graduated and began a family, I didn't have the inkling to strive to understand golf's place in God's economy. It was no longer one of life's