Golf & the Farthest Reaches of the Soul

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Adam Scott, 2103 Masters winner

Sports Saturday

I thought and thought but, for the life of me, I couldn’t come up with a literary work that did justice to the craziness of last weekend’s Masters Tournament. What I particularly have in mind is the sequence where Tiger hit a perfect shot onto the green, only to have it carom off the flag pole and go into the water. And then for him to drop the ball in the wrong place, be penalized two strokes, and go on to finish fourth. Without that, I am convinced he would have won the tournament.

Anyway, here’s a golf poem by Texas poet Larry D. Thomas that celebrates the drive and the mental fortitude it takes to compete at the highest levels of the sport:

The Golfer 

Daily at daybreak, even in the rain,
I see him in the distance
sinking his tee into the teeing ground,
centering his white ball
snugly in the circle of its cup,
clutching the grip of his driver,
and merging his body and mind
for the drive, a solitary man, who,
with but his clubs, tees, balls and game
of power, grace and touch so precise
he calculates the breath of crows,
plays the farthest reaches of his soul. 

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