Guest Column: Golf and Faith

Late have I loved thee, o golf. For years I wasted my Sunday afternoons in frivolous pursuits: watching sports on TV, eating meals with my family, resting on the couch—blissfully removed from bunker, rough, and double bogey.

But my heart was made for you, o golf, and it will be restless until my ball rests in the cup. Then it happened that one summer day I was driving clear past (as was my vain habit) a local driving range, no doubt on my way to some base non-golfing activity, when for reasons attributable only to grace I turned away from the road on which I was headed and pulled into the place. Walking up I saw the familiar range denizens whom I had so often scorned, bending over their green mats; but this time I felt the stirrings of a strange kinship that I couldn’t explain. Then I heard a voice as from the heavens:

“Take, and swing.”

Hardly conscious of what I was doing, I handed over five dollars for something called a “small bucket”; grabbed from the rack a pocked and peeling demo club; teed up a yellow, smiling old Top-Flite; and heaved-to with all I was good for.

And missed the ball completely. Though the whiff of wind did cause it to stir and topple off the tee, with a hint of slice. I was filled with shame and self-abnegation, wishing I could sink and disappear into the fibers of artificial turf. But then an amazing thing happened. I teed up another ball. Took a hack at it. Then another. And so on till I was out of cash and my hands were purpled. And thus that day marked the miraculous event. Conversio. I became a Golfer. A bad, bad Golfer.

I spent so much time at that range the next few weeks that I considered having my mail forwarded there. One cool evening shortly before closing, the range pro wandered behind and watched me (from an appropriately wary distance) flailing away. We fell into talking: Why was I learning to golf?, he wanted to know. Did my job demand that I take clients out on the links? Pressure from buddies to be the new fourth in their weekly game?

I stared at the man helplessly, fumbling for words. No…I just had to golf…voice from heaven…nothing to do with me.

Whether he simply took pity on a sick soul, or was an angel sent from above to weaken my grip and keep my head still, I can’t say, but that night I received my first (and last gratis) golf lesson. I like to think, though, that he was moved by the purity of my motives. My golf-love had not a hint of the utilitarian in it; it was rooted in and demanded by the object itself and thus a matter of justice. I had no other option. I was stuck.

The Faith is that way also. We who perceive the profound unity and coherence of Catholicism, we who are sealed with the theological virtue of faith—we’re stuck. Where else would we go? I have to believe, I tell curious friends. I’m cursed with conviction.

That’s why I’ve been so touched in recent months by my experience as part of my parish RCIA team, and particularly by the witness of one catechumen whom I recently volunteered to sponsor. Mark didn’t enter the Church because he’s marrying a Catholic girl; he wasn’t doing it to please his mom, or simply because he dreads the pains of hell. He, like most of the others in the group, is being moved from within. He’s turning his face to God’s because God has called him. And he’s not taking any half-measures, either. If he wanted he could create for himself whatever comfortable custom spirituality suited him best; but instead he wants to bind himself to the Catholic religion in its fullness. To this jaded prisoner of faith, he’s an inspiration. He longs for that which I, in my darker moments, can feel merely resigned to.

At least he did, until Easter came. Now he’s stuck too.

Author

  • Todd M. Aglialoro

    Todd M. Aglialoro is the acquisitions editor for Catholic Answers.

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