#18 Letting go, leaving well

Golf lesson #18: The good leave

When I started writing these golf lessons, life felt different. That was back on the 1st.

That was also when my father-in-law Vic was around. I’d since shared a few of these tales with him – how he loved a good yarn, hailing from an era when storytelling was a normal social skill. I hope he’d approve of this one.

So when I wrote the 17th lesson – the Ryder Cup special which successfully predicted a win in the making – I thought maybe the next one should be the last one I write.

Then life happened and Vic died after a short illness (with underlying stuff taking its toll), and this golf lesson got a whole lot harder to write. Then it was made a bit easier after a few people I hadn't seen for a while mentioned they'd been reading and enjoying these golf lessons this year.

Basically, a blur of weeks passed by. I don't know what to say about someone who's been a second father to me for two-thirds of my days and all my adult life. And it feels trite to compare what Vic means to me with a ‘good leave’. But that's the grief-to-golf gymnastics I’m trying, because there's no right or wrong way to do this.

Take the concept of a good leave – while you're hoping and manifesting the best outcome, you're simultaneously planning and accommodating the worst. That's a tricky mind game. Holding two opposing thoughts requires mental fortitude. It’s the kind of thinking that seems in short supply and is constantly under assault these days. Maybe it was a generational trait of those 1940s kids – bred from pre-to-post-WWII stoicism.

You need to back yourself. Especially against the odds.

It takes a bear to know a bear

As Vikki recalled at Vic’s funeral: If there's a small chance, take it.

It’s that mix of deep desire, doggedness and level-headedness in the face of reality. Alex's reading described a family of bears, with Vic as the great bear. Fitting, really. Another GOAT bear, Jack Nicklaus (the Golden Bear), once said that 'success depends almost entirely on how effectively you learn to manage the game's two ultimate adversaries: the course and yourself.’

That was Vic’s thinking to a tee.

He understood how opportunities create opportunities. He didn't have lots of jobs, he had one career. He positioned himself to be lucky, which meant decades of work. And all those hours he put into reading fruit machines’ tendency to pay out was supernatural. He loved when things added up and he could show how. How many beans make five? Two beans, half a bean, a bean and a half, and a bean.

You always felt like he got you. Animals felt it too. He was tuned in to horses and totally respected their acute intelligence. In dogs, he saw a trait deeply ingrained in himself: unwavering loyalty. And like a great caddy, Vic built you up. Placing confidence firmly in your hands (though he could shatter it too with booming instantaneity and shock effect!)

That loyalty was underpinned with security. So if (or even before) the shit hit the fan, you could call him. And even if you hadn't given something your best shot, subconsciously knowing you had a backstop was how everyone felt. It’s a measure of his depth of loyalty that he made time for weekly beers with his best bears and friends for more than 60 years.

From bears to beans

Death is harder on those who are left. But when all your beans have added up to five, what you leave behind helps.

There's a paradox within a paradox when you start worrying about what your legacy might be and not just getting on with the business of leaving the world a better place.

But that’s hard. We need all the help, support and love we can get just to get through this sometimes. Life, (at the risk of trivialising everything I've just said) like golf, is a game of minimizing mistakes by maximizing luck. And if you’re lucky enough you’ll enjoy a peaceful departure. An orderly exit. An odds-calculated move to the last.

Is the 18th hole ever the finish? I don't think so. It's only a number; a hand of cards. It's how you play that matters and that largely depends on what you leave yourself with next time. That was Vic's ability – keeping two opposing forces moving toward the same clear intention.

Do that and it’s always destined to be a good leave. And good leaves never really leave you.