A Look into the Mind of a Sinner
by WCBWARNING - This post is about golf…sorta…and doing the wrong thing…mostly…and paying for it in the end.
How does a sinner’s mind work? I don’t know about yours, but I reluctantly share here how my mind works.
I was hanging out at the Samsung LPGA World Championships in Half Moon Bay hoping secretly that the preacher was eating his heart out because I can smooze with Lorena Ochoa, the world’s #1 and Annika Sorenstam #2, and…okay, the world’s top 20golfin’ girls.
Feeling pretty good about myself because I can do what others cannot is the first step a sinner takes. Call it pride, I suppose.
Hole number four is a long one - 481 yards par 5. The neat thing, I think, is that to the left there is a long stretch of overgrowth. I usually notice these things because when I play my golf balls are quite apt at finding such places.
“Do not look to the left or the right…” Off course is the only thing I can see sometimes.
“Ah, there’s a guy over rooting through the rough. Hmm…looking for stray golf balls maybe? Maybe I can…”
Wrong choice. Be on the straight and narrow (fairway) or be like the guy in the rough.
I started hunting for strays as well giving no mind to the red line that has been painted on the ground telling me where I should NOT go.
“I’m cool. I can find golf balls, take them home for free, save a couple of bucks.
“I am supposed to be working but there’s got to be a way I can justify my foray into the rough. I’ll think about it later.
“A ball…another ball…and another…. I have to be saving $2 finding a few stray balls. Yea!”
Feeling pretty smug, I headed back onto the course to watch the pros play. Truth be told, I ran out of rough to go through.
A few more holes into my walk and I realized it’s pretty bright outside. Not to fear, I reached for my sunglasses…the prescription type only to learn I had dropped them, when I was searching for stray balls. Saved $2 and lost a $100 or so.
“Isn’t it fun to sin?” NOT!
Nobody ever accused me of being smart. Not being satisfied with just losing my sunglasses, I decided to go back over where I might have lost my glasses. At about a yard a step, I only needed to cover some 6,000 steps. But, who was counting?
I figured, if I can’t find my glasses maybe I’ll find some more balls.
I didn’t find my glasses but I did find some more balls, about 4.15 balls. Somebody should ask me sometime about the .15 ball that I found or maybe I can figure out how to take a picture of it.
Oh, and my fingers have become a pin cushion for minuscule prickly needles that until today have kept everybody else from searching the rough for balls that I so eagerly jumped into.
How fun it is to be a sinner.
That phrase “Be sure your sin will find you out” keeps ringing in my ears, and in my fingers.
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:16 am
Ah, the allure of a stray ball to a golfer. I believe it is stronger than the allure of a stray diamond to a pirate, so I am not surprised that you succumbed to the temptation. (Mark Twain understood this principle, and famously wrote, “It is good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.”)
But I appreciate the insights, and I’ll be careful to keep my sunglasses in my hand when I scrounge for lost balls, and wear gloves (or use a golf club) where appropriate.
Thanks, seriously, for making your point with humor from a real life experience. That is how we learn.
November 4th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
What a day, huh? And in life these kinds of decision trees happen constantly. So many choices, so many opportunities to live up or down. What’s amazing is how hard it is to decide whether I like having pin-cushion fingers.