Just hours before catching a flight back from St. Louis to Amsterdam, my brother Bill and I had a 7am tee time to play a quick 9 holes. Sugar Creek is not one of the most pristine golf courses in the St. Louis area, but in addition to location, we chose Sugar Creek primarily to accommodate our “Golf Style”, which could be described as rusty (my brother) and rustier (me)! I was an avid golfer before moving to the Netherlands, but unfortunately the Dutch do their best to destroy keep golf exclusive; building very few and very lousy unremarkable golf courses, making them Private Clubs and even requiring a license to play golf!
The game of golf demands practice and can otherwise be painfully frustrating. Due to our complete lack of recent practice, my brother and I didn’t actually plan to play on this visit, but after 2 trips to the driving range that were increasingly acceptable, we decided to give it a try.
Here is the great quote that my brother and favorite golfing buddy said as we teed off on the first hole…
“I’m not a good enough golfer to be a frustrated golfer!”
This comment set the tone for the whole morning. Life is all about expectations and if your expectations reside somewhere in the same neighborhood as reality, disappointment is less likely to be debilitating.
Hacking a little white golf ball has been known to bring out the worst in many men; mostly because there is no one else to blame but yourself. By having realistic expectations and not putting pressure on ourselves, (only noticing on the 2nd hole that we hadn’t even picked up a scorecard), we enjoyed every aspect of the morning. We were lucky to be the first ones on the course and had it all to ourselves; there were great views from some of the tee boxes, and the weather was crazy mild for July in St. Louis. We even made a few great shots each, which we savored one by one; celebrating the putts we sank instead of cursing the ones missed! We played well enough to wish we had time to play the back nine. Most of all, we enjoyed spending the morning together before I flew 5.000 miles away. It was one sweet round!
Suzy Ogé is an American born business woman living in The Hague, The Netherlands. 