Lesson Learned from an 8 Year Old

Last weekend I headed "North" to visit my grand kids.  First day I had planned to take the 8 and 12 year old, along with a friend of theirs, out to golf.  They have been taking lessons from the First Tee program which states on their web page - "Our mission is to impact the lives of young people by providing educational programs that build character, instill life-enhancing values and promote healthy choices through the game of golf."

I was thrilled to hear that they were in this program!  I have a deep love of the game, which has brought many wonderful people into my life and taken me on many travel adventures.  I consider it to be a sport that promotes rules, civility and order at a reasonable pace, all set in glorious nature.  It is almost as nourishing to the soul to me as another of my passions, fishing, is.

Off we headed to a course nearby.  After loading our clubs on pull carts and starting out, I realized that this would not be as easy as I anticipated.  The friend had never held a club and there was much instruction to be made (no you do not put ball on tee in fairway) etc.  And three kids hitting in three directions meant I was covering a lot of ground finding balls in the rough.

I saw that a twosome was behind us on the tee waiting as we progressed to the green so I herded the kiddos to the side and signaled the couple to play through.  Politeness personified as actually a twosome usually has to wait for a larger group.  These are some of the unwritten "rules" on the course that keep it so dignified.  The kids were patient and what a great lesson they learned, right?

After the twosome finished and moved off the green,  I instructed one of the kids to hit and noticed a ball come flying by us onto the green.  What??  I looked to see a man driving a cart up to the green in front of us.  Wait a minute.  Mama Bear came out and I yelled at him "hey, we are about to hit! What are you doing?"

Uh-oh.  The battle began.  He mouthed off at me about "this" happened to him last week.  And I yelled back that wasn't my fault and that I had already let someone through and it was our turn.  And back and forth and then he picked up his ball and zoomed in front of us to the next tee box.  HE CUT IN FRONT OF US.

And then I heard Ruby, my 8 year old granddaughter, pipe up "Grammy, in the First Tee we learned that you are supposed to be polite on the golf course."

Shut down by an 8 year old!  I walked up to the man and apologized and told him I had every intention of letting him play through if we held him up.  And he sort of mumbled an apology too and we declared we were "all good".  And all week it weighed on me.  Because isn't this what is wrong right now in our society in general.  That we make judgments in a snap.  That we react in haste in a negative way.  That we think we are being cheated, or conned or believe the worse in our fellow man?  I am ashamed that I reacted in the way I did and I told my grand kids so.  And thank you Ruby, and the First Tee, for a lesson learned.