Today’s find: Flat Stick

The greens at Boone Valley are the most challenging I’ve ever played.

Slick. Hard to “read”. Even, at times, seeming to defy the laws of physics. (“How can that putt NOT slope down toward the water?!?”)

Suffice it to say, whenever I have the privilege of playing golf at Boone Valley, I consider “two-putts” a notable victory compared to the “three-“ and even “four-putts” I typically record there.

But yesterday, I experienced a bit of magic with the flat stick. First, a ten-footer went in. Then another. Then a 15-footer. I was (as it’s said in some circles) en fuego on the diabolical greens at Boone Valley. The Boss of the Moss. I may even have sunk a fourth “tester” – I can’t remember precisely how many of my putts went in, so delirious was I at this unprecedented turn of fortune during our friendly match.

And thank God that I was among friends, some of my dearest friends, while playing the round – because they graciously witnessed meltdowns in many other parts of my game, offering only encouragement in return.

This game, I’ve noticed, has many different ways to humble me – especially when I’m playing a beautiful track like Boone Valley. Indeed, it’s rarely a matter of “par” or “birdie” that keeps me coming back to play. I have to settle instead for a few magical moments, brief glimpses of success. “God moments,” I like to say – like a red-hot flat-stick on an otherwise thoroughly feckless golfing day.

My ego wishes it were otherwise. I’d much prefer to have a sweet swing, a reliable swing that’d make bogies (and double-bogies) the exception rather than the rule. Which is to say, my ego needs taming. It needs the humbling lessons golf offers, I think … because failure (oddly) moves me a bit closer to experiencing the Kingdom of God.

At least, that’s what Jesus seems to suggest in the gospel passage we encounter this week. “Rather, when you are invited [to the banquet], go and take the lowest place so that when the Host comes to you, he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’”

Jesus teaches, “For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Pretty much exactly the opposite of how I’d expect things to work.

There’s a lesson in that, I think. Jesus offers a consolation that simply defies our expectations. Kind of like wielding an unexpectedly hot putter on a beautiful day.