I’ve been waiting for two months to write this series of blogs. I had to wait until there was something to write about! The topic? Lessons learned working on my golf game.

I’ve never been a good golfer, but I used to be “adequate,” at least by my standards, which are:

• Hit nearly all balls so that they go up (not dribble along the ground) in the general direction of the hole.
• Don’t lose more golf balls than I find.
• Don’t spend too much time looking for my ball so that I slow down people I’m playing with.

That’s all. Modest goals. We’ve been “swim and fitness” members of our local club, but in 2017 all swim members played golf for free. I went out a few times shooting between 53 and 58 on our challenging, treed course with lots of elevation. (I put that out there just for perspective.) My knee went out in October 2017, and I haven’t played golf since.

Now it’s 2021, two knee replacements later, and I want to get back to it. I started out terribly. Two months after starting I shot a 48 (10 strokes better than most of my previous rounds at my local course). It’s still a work in progress, but there is progress, and that’s what I want to talk about over the next few days:

• Purpose
• Practice
• Perseverance
• Performance

And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith. (Philippians 1.25, NKJV)

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3.13, 14, ESV)