No golfer, scholar, or writer is an island.

Published in Medium’s Entertain, Enlighten and Empower

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Golfing

Yesterday, I played golf by myself on an unoccupied course. My usual links buddies were unavailable.

“It happens every year in September. Even on a beautiful day like this, the place is empty,” said the clubhouse guy.

As you can see from the first photo, there is no other living person on site.

Alas, today was not Judgment Day. Or, for fans of the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, imagine the undead moseying up that sidewalk to form my gallery.

I wanted someone around to appreciate the high-arc fade that led to this close-to-the-hole Tigeresque result pictured below. I used a five-hybrid club to hit 150 yards over a valley that bounced two times and rolled up on the green for a gimmie putt if you’re playing alone.

Or to see me try to maneuver my ball between these trees.

I used a five-wood to lift the ball over the first tree on the right. Unfortunately, it tipped an unforgiving top branch and dropped behind the tree’s trunk — one more inch and perfection. As it was, you would have appreciated the vision and the effort.

That shot was as hard as a transition sentence or two in this story between solitary golf and writing. But first, one more audience example.

Studying

I just finished teaching a Lifelong Learning seminar on the American 2024 Presidential Election. The course was attended by 35 mostly retired community members. We met for three hours each Wednesday in September. Below was my freely captured audience.

During my forty-year teaching career, I loved creating new courses. Teaching forced me to keep learning, and my summers were full of days of exploring and preparing.

My college’s Lifelong Learning program helps keep me in the game.

Without it, I’d be like that solitary golfer performing for gravestones.

Writing

Who wonders, “What’s the point without a witness?”

Would I have read all those political books last summer without the promise of a packed room dangling in front of me?

Writers are told to write for their readers. I’ve never understood what that means. But that’s different from the question, would you write if you had no readers? Does writing give you enough sustenance to do it without anyone else paying attention?

I’m not sure golf does it for me. I took many photos during yesterday’s round and subconsciously thought about this story. Two political books are lying unread on my desk, which I did not get to before I finished my class. Maybe I’ll finish them. Maybe not.

Would I complete this story if I knew no one would read it?

This question makes me uncomfortable. Needing an audience seems a baser motive than loving golf, the study of politics, or writing, regardless of externalities.

But is it less pure?

I’m not so sure.

I love the camaraderie of playing golf with one or two friends. So much socializing comes from the game’s challenges, commiserations, and rare opportunities for transcendence, like the shot in photo three and the almost shot in photo four. Perhaps it’s the game that brings us together.

I love the back-and-forth of a diverse group of people collectively thinking about America’s political life. In a way, we’re doing the thing we’re studying.

Finally, I love the possibility of a reader of this story asking herself, “Do I need an audience for whatever I am passionate about?”

Humans are social. So, everything we do can be sparkled by the need to reach beyond ourselves.

No golfer, scholar, or writer is an island.

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