Birdies, Bogeys, and Life Lessons from the Game of Golf E-Book

Os Hillman

• Herausgeber: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 157

Beschreibung

Live with purpose on and off the course. In golf and life, you don't always hit a hole in one, but God uses all challenges to demonstrate his grace and mercy. In Birdies, Bogeys, and Life Lessons from the Game of Golf, writer and lifelong golfer Os Hillman shares reflections on golf and the spiritual realities that can be learned from it.   Through fifty-two devotions, Os will encourage and challenge you with - inspiring stories of golfers and the golf experience, - personal insights about the joys and hardships of life and golf, and - spiritual truths that help renew your relationship with God.Discover how the lessons learned in golf reveal deeper truths about God.  

Leseprobe

Arnold Palmer said, “The road to success is always under construction.” Os gets that and uses warmth, wit, and grit in this unique devotional. The analogies between golf and life make for an interesting read and make it easy to understand the life lessons. We all want to score high on the scorecard that counts, God’s scorecard. Like the hybrid club widely used in the PGA, this book is both a gift to those who receive it and a tool for the reader to use in life and relationships.

— Dr. Jay Strack, founder, Student Leadership University

Over the many years of knowing Os, playing many rounds of golf together, participating in small groups, and reading his devotionals, I was excited to see this new devotional about golf. I learned so much about the household names in golf. Os provides insightful stories of their lives and then brings spiritual parallels that we can apply in our own lives. If you love golf, you’ll enjoy how Os brings to life the spiritual applications that can be derived from the game of golf.

— Dan Van Horn, founder and CEO, US Kids Golf

Once you begin reading Birdies, Bogeys, and Life Lessons from the Game of Golf, it’s hard to stop. I couldn’t tear myself away until I read five or six devotions. I know that golfers, and many others, are going to love it.

— Richard C. McElroy III, AWMA®, JD

In his devotionals, Os has an amazing way of connecting real life with everyday faith. Although I’m not a golfer, I’m encouraged, inspired, and informed by these Scripture-based insights. We all have a legacy to leave, and these lessons from golf motivate me to embrace and pursue God’s hopes for my life, unhindered by setbacks, uncertainties, and fears of failure. I’m inspired to get back out there and take another swing!

— Dr. David Ferguson, CEO, Relational Values Alliance

BroadStreet Publishing® Group, LLC

Savage, Minnesota, USA

BroadStreetPublishing.com

Birdies, Bogeys, and Life Lessons from the Game of Golf: 52 Devotions

Copyright © 2022 Os Hillman

978-1-4245-6525-2 (faux leather)

978-1-4245-6526-9 (ebook)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Scripture quotations marked TPT are from The Passion Translation®. Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com. Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked CSB are taken from the Christian Standard Bible®. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.

Stock or custom editions of BroadStreet Publishing titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, ministry, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected].

Cover and interior by Garborg Design Works | garborgdesign.com

Printed in China

22 23 24 25 26 5 4 3 2 1

Even in the midst of all these things, we triumph over them all, for God has made us to be more than conquerors.

ROMANS 8:37 TPT

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Week 1 Just Fake It

Week 2 Perfect Shots Don’t Mean Perfect Outcomes

Week 3 Meltdown

Week 4 Paralysis by Analysis

Week 5 All Things Work Together for Good

Week 6 The Epic Collapse

Week 7 Intimidation

Week 8 He Will Strengthen You

Week 9 Spit the Bit

Week 10 Fear Not!

Week 11 Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect

Week 12 From Disappointment to Exaltation

Week 13 Arnold Palmer

Week 14 In the Zone

Week 15 Self-Belief

Week 16 Handling Disappointments

Week 17 Small in Stature—Big in Faith

Week 18 Better than Most!

Week 19 Born Again

Week 20 God’s Scorecard

Week 21 Outside the Box

Week 22 Regrets

Week 23 “You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me!”

Week 24 “Take a Mulligan!”

Week 25 Free Drop When Encountering Alligators

Week 26 “MR. 59”

Week 27 The Artist

Week 28 You’ll Never Perfect This Game—So Stop

Week 29 Excellence in Sports—The Tiger Story

Week 30 Family Comes First

Week 31 Heaven on Earth

Week 32 Even the Best Yield to Pressure at Times

Week 33 The Young Giant Killers

Week 34 Sudden Ghosts

Week 35 Living under the Cloud

Week 36 Perfect Execution Does Not Always Result in Perfect Outcomes

Week 37 Receiving From God

Week 38 Faith and Family

Week 39 Overcoming Obstacles

Week 40 Despise Not Small Beginnings

Week 41 Managing Expectations

Week 42 Slow of Speech

Week 43 Even God Can’t Hit a 1-Iron

Week 44 We Are Ambassadors

Week 45 Breaking Barriers

Week 46 No Guarantees. No Formulas.

Week 47 When Words Matter

Week 48 Anger on the Golf Course

Week 49 Being A Good Son

Week 50 In The Shadows

Week 51 Learning the Art of Winning

Week 52 An Industry-Changing Enterprise from a Handshake

About the Author

Additional Resources from Os Hillman

FOREWORD

I first met Os Hillman in the 1980s when I hired him to help me launch an instructional kid’s video featuring me and my son. Os owned an advertising agency back then, and he and I shared a common interest in golf. Os was a former golf pro, and I was a former PGA Tour player. We had our love of Christ and our love of golf as common denominators.

During the next twenty-five years, we each went down different paths. Os began a marketplace ministry that trains Christian business leaders to integrate their faith in their work life, and he became a prolific writer. I, too, became a writer and a passionate promoter of how golf could be used to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Golf is such a great catalyst for relationship building and bridge building to discuss spiritual issues in the lives of people. When Os asked me to write the foreword to his new book, I was excited to read it and be a small part of its launch.

Birdies, Bogeys, and Life Lessons from the Game of Golf is filled with entertaining and informative stories about golf legends as well as many entertaining stories about Os’s own golf life, which began when he was eleven years old. But the most unique part of the book is how Os brings spiritual lessons from the stories of golfers to stories in the Bible, sharing the analogies that can often be found between the game of golf and our spiritual lives. In fact, ever since I met Jesus at the University of Florida in 1968, I have used these golf metaphors to relate the game of golf to living a life of faith. Os provides us with thoughtful questions at the end of each day’s devotional to get us thinking about the message.

I invite you to spend time with this book every day and engage with the spiritual message at the end of each devotional.

In his grip,

Wally Armstrong

PGA professional

Coauthor of The Mulligan

Author of Practicing the Presence of Jesus

INTRODUCTION

My first introduction to golf was through my father. He started me playing golf at age eleven. I would also learn to caddie for my dad and his Saturday foursome. I carried two bags for five dollars each. I thought I was rich!

I picked up the game quickly. All summer long, my parents would drop me off at the club at eight in the morning and pick me up at dusk. Our club had several juniors who would play golf every day together. I remember my very first pair of real golf shoes. They were red, kangaroo leather shoes with flaps. I can still remember the noise they made when I walked. I won my junior club championship at my club.

By age fourteen, I had broken 70 three times and had three holes in one. I was predicted to be the next great golfer from my state. I qualified for the US Junior Amateur at fifteen that was played at Brookline Country Club in Boston. Taking that trip was the first time I traveled on a jet.

My family and I would have a personal crisis that year when my father was killed in a plane crash. It devastated my mom, but it led to a personal commitment to Jesus Christ later in her life. She would attempt to share this with me, but I was not open to it at that time.

A handful of universities recruited me for college-level golf. Jesse Haddock, coach of Wake Forest University, invited me for a weekend visit to be considered for a golf scholarship. My host that weekend was standout Lanny Wadkins, a new student who had just won the US Amateur Championship. Two years later, I would play his brother, Bobby Wadkins, in the North and South Men’s Amateur Championship at Pinehurst No. 2 course. I lost on the eighteenth hole 1 up.

I would go to the University of South Carolina on a four-year scholarship. My first college golf match was in a match play team event against the University of Georgia. I played Billy Kratzert, a national high school standout from Indiana. We were tied coming into the last hole at the University of Georgia Golf Course. The pin was on the back of the green, and I hit my second shot on the front. I had about a fifty-foot putt. I made it to win the match! Only golfers can remember such things fifty years later.

I went on to have a mediocre golf career in college, and it led to a personal crisis in my life. I knew I wanted to play professional golf, but my dream seemed to be dying. It led me to ask many questions about my life. I turned pro but only worked as a club pro for three years. I worked at Vail Golf Club in Colorado and eventually met President Gerald Ford, who often vacationed there. I gave him a few golf lessons and caddied for him a few times for celebrity golf tournaments. My searching for answers led me to Jesus Christ in 1974. That decision changed my life.

Today I have a ministry to men and women in the workplace. And I write a daily devotional called TGIF: Today God Is First that is read in 105 countries. Golf remains an important part of my life, but it plays a very different role today. Today I can appreciate the game more than at any other time in my life. I still have a single-digit handicap and enjoy being outdoors, and I still compete in tournaments as a “super senior.”

There are many analogies that can be made between golf and the Christian life. My prayer is that you will enjoy the golf stories I am sharing and the spiritual analogies and applications to the Scriptures that you can apply to your life.

Play well!

Os Hillman

WEEK 1

JUST FAKE IT

Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen.

HEBREWS 11:1 TPT

I was in college at the time. I was playing in a lot of golf tournaments. I was attending college on a four-year golf scholarship, and I had high hopes to be a professional golfer one day. During the summers, I traveled the country playing in national and regional golf tournaments.

There was one thing that plagued me that has affected golfers all over the world—first tee jitters. I hated them. Sometimes I would hit really poor shots because I could not control the first tee jitters. The great Bobby Jones used to say he struggled with first tee jitters so bad he often used a 3-wood just to insure he got the first tee shot in play.

Golfers often go through mental gymnastics when standing on the first tee in a tournament. We begin to think thoughts we never think in a normal game of golf. Will I make contact? What if I shank it or top it? What will they think of me? It’s the only game I know that can reduce a seasoned player to a beginner in one swing because of nerves or the intimidation factor of the situation.

One day I was playing a practice round with a well-known professional who had played on the tour. He and I had become friends. I asked him how he dealt with first tee jitters. He was quick to respond.

“I pretend that I am Jack Nicklaus and I have all the confidence in the world. I sort of ‘play act’ how he would approach the first tee. I present myself almost in a cocky manner as if I am the greatest golfer who ever swung a club. Somehow this allows me to move past the nerves. I guess it’s getting into a different state of mind. It has worked for me.”

FAITH WHEN YOU CAN’T SEE IT

Faith is the evidence of things not seen. It says I am going to believe something even when I can’t see it or feel it. We pretend it has already happened and expect the outcome we want to happen. When the priests carried the ark of the covenant into the Jordan River at flood stage (see Joshua 3), they had to believe God was going to help them cross over, but there was a real risk they could lose the ark in the river. Sometimes we must simply put one foot in front of the other to see God move on our behalf.

WEEK 2

PERFECT SHOTS DON’T MEAN PERFECT OUTCOMES

Trust in the Lord completely, and do not rely on your own opinions. With all your heart rely on him to guide you, and he will lead you in every decision you make. Become intimate with him in whatever you do, and he will lead you wherever you go.

PROVERBS 3:5–6 TPT

Sometimes you prepare and execute the right shot, and it turns out bad. The fourth hole of my favorite golf course is a par 5. It has a big fairway but has a bunker strategically placed near the corner of the dogleg. It often seems like there is a suction device that draws my ball right into that bunker. I hit a great tee shot right down the middle, but sometimes it ends up against the lip of the bunker.

The Genesis Invitational PGA Tour event is played at the famed Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, where many celebrities are members. In 2018, Tiger Woods was on the eleventh hole when his ball veered off course. On this particular hole, trees lined the fairway, and while Woods anticipated finding his ball in the right rough, it turned out that his ball struck the trees…and stayed there. He had no choice but to tee off again. In the end, Woods landed a double bogey on the hole. When speaking about the incident, Justin Thomas stated he worried the ball would get stuck as soon as Woods hit it:

It’s going to sound really weird, but I swear as that ball’s going over there I thought in my head, “I hope that doesn’t get stuck in a tree,” because that happens out here…Then he’s driving back to the tee and I’m like, “Holy crap, it actually did get stuck in a tree.”1

LEAN NOT ON YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING

Life is not always fair. We can do the right thing, but a situation can still turn out badly. Your spouse might leave you, a child could die, you could get fired from your job, and the list goes on. The Bible says God “sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45 NIV).

Today’s Scripture verse admonishes us to trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding, and if we acknowledge him, no matter the outcome, ultimately he will make good come from it. No matter how unexpected calamities happen, like our ball getting stuck in a tree, we can still trust God for the outcome. Today, trust God with all your heart, no matter what.

1 Will Gray, “Tiger Loses Ball in Eucalyptus Tree on 11,” Golf Channel (website), NBC Sports, February 15, 2018, https://www.golfchannel.com/news/tiger-woods-loses-golf-ball-eucalyptus-tree-genesis-open.

WEEK 3

MELTDOWN

“He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

MATTHEW 5:45 NKJV

Golf can be a cruel game at times. Even the most seasoned golfers can have a meltdown and totally lose their concentration. As all golfers come to find out, it is a humbling game no matter your experience level.

On the Sunday of the 2021 Travelers Championship, Bubba Watson was in the lead when he entered the back nine. However, Bubba would go on to make three bogeys and a double bogey on the back nine to shoot 73 and lose by six strokes. It was a complete meltdown. However, Bubba handled the situation well:

“Gosh, I’ve thrown up on myself before here. Made a triple on 16 to lose when I was up by one or two that year,” Watson said, referencing 2013, when he led by two strokes with three holes to play, only to hit his tee shot into the water on 16 and finish two strokes out of a playoff.2

While understandably disappointed in the way the event turned out, Watson hoped to win at a high level again:

“I’m glad that I was there, had the opportunity,” he said. “You know, I would love to do it again next week, throw up on myself again. It would be great. I want the opportunity and the chance to win.”3

I was impressed with how Bubba handled this situation. We all must realize golf is very unpredictable sometimes, even for the world’s best players.

LEMONS TO LEMONADE