“Not all those who wander are lost.”
J. R. R. Tolkien
Wind gusts were blowing at 26 mph. The temperature was 41°F. It was partly cloudy. The sun played hide and seek. There were no placards on the tee boxes. Nothing was clear, neither the weather nor the path. We had to guess everything.
I was playing at the Preakness Valley Golf Course for the first time. It had two 18-hole golf courses: the East course and the West course. The west course was closed for the winter.
Course conditions were good apart from the missing placards. If you are a regular winter golf player on the East Coast, you can move around the course without signs. Yet no golf course is ever without the specific character of “Golf Path Only.”
I was wondering whether playing without the signs and the placards was like living without literacy. I realized how difficult it is for an illiterate to move around the world today.
Computer-driven life and chip-led days operate almost automatically. Today most of us are leading our lives on a digital and binary basis. And thanks to Golfshot, we are guided through signless courses.
On my trip to China, I had feelings of being illiterate. Most of your education evaporates once you are among people who speak a different language.
When we don’t know how to express our feelings in their language, our feelings become meaningless to them. A word in an unknown language is nothing more than a tongue twist or a mark of designer ink. Only dictionaries help, and Google is the best one.
Language is one of the most important skills that humans have developed after the knowledge of edibles.
Language alone is not enough – the content of what you say is what matters the most. A lie is a lie in any language but the truth needs no translation. Sometimes the truth can be conveyed without uttering a word.
“Not the ones speaking the same language, but the ones sharing the same feeling understand each other.”
Rumi
Golf has its own language which is very codified. Since you are playing this game against yourself, whenever you lie or cheat in this game, you do it against your own self. As a matter of fact, whenever we think we are cheating others, we are basically cheating ourselves. Honesty is the best policy both in golf and in life.
Credits
Preakness Golf Club
Images
Scott Miller
By
Ahsan Jamil
Golfer, Blogger, Entrepreneur, Author, Poet, Wanderer, Photographer, Rebel.
Email: Golfaij@gmail.com
Website: Golfaij.com
YouTube: Morning with Golf