Golf is an irritating little sport that beckons us with promises of hope then dashes them in the sand or the creek. It's something my son and I have been thinking about the last few days and something we celebrate at Easter. Standing on the first hole with grand visions of the round ahead, Jeffrey pulled out his new driver, carefully placed a brand new ball on a brand new tee, took a few perfect practice swings, then smacked his first shot. Hard.
My friend Lyndon had been enjoying his round until then. He was standing on the second green less than a hundred yards away lining up a long putt thinking pleasant thoughts when he heard two guys yelling “Fore,” at roughly the same decibel level as a teenager's stereo.
Later that day, Jeffrey and I showed up at his house with a card and a gift. Lyndon limped to the door and smiled at us as we stood there apologizing for the eleventeenth time.
“No problem,” said Lyndon. “I'm a welder. I'm used to incoming objects.”
I talked with a former Buddhist once, asking him what he saw in Christ that he never saw in Buddha. He didn't even pause to think about it. “Forgiveness for my sin,” he said. It is the promise of God, sealed at Easter.
Recently, I watched another story of forgiveness unfold during the prestigious British Open. Though Ian Woosnam was ranked number one in 1991, has his own jet airplane and a putting green, he had been on a “downhill slide” according to the media. But here he was atop the leader board, tied on the last day of the tournament with four other golfers. At only five foot four inches tall, Woosnam was poised to stand tall on the winner's podium.
After nearly acing a hole, he found himself leading the final round. Bending over to tee his ball up, he turned to caddie Miles Byrne for a club.
Instead, he got the shock of his golfing life.
“We've got two drivers in the bag,” Byrne told him.
Woosnam knew immediately what it meant. He had 13 other clubs. With two drivers, that made 15. Only 14 are allowed. Woosnam had to call a two-stroke penalty on himself. A penalty that would knock him out of the lead.
When the day was over, he had fallen four strokes short of the winning score posted by David Duvall and was left wondering what might have been had one of the worst gaffes in major championship history not occurred.
But the response of the two men is the real story. Surely Miles Byrne could find someone or something to blame for his mistake. Instead Byrne said, “You want me to stand here and make excuses? There is no excuse. The buck stops at me. My fault, two-shot penalty, end of story.” And what about Woosnam? How loudly would the Welshman yell when he fired Byrne, the caddy that may have cost him his last chance at a major championship?
The Irish Examiner printed his response: “With a superhuman show of forgiveness Woosnam did not murder Byrne.”
“It's the biggest mistake he will make in his life,” said Woosnam. “He won't do it again. He's a good caddie. He will have a severe talking to when I get in, but I'm not going to sack him.”
As the two walked together down the fairway to the 18th green, the crowd rose to its feet giving them a standing ovation. Failure and remorse. Repentance and forgiveness. I think I've read that story somewhere before.
