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The game of life is one we all think about on a daily basis, or at least we should. Its a funny game, sometimes things roll along, like a golf ball on the fairway, after a good shot off the tee. Come to think of it, golf itself is a metaphor for life.

You can tell a lot about a person through their golf game. You can analyze their personality, see how they manage adverse conditions, watch how strong their mind is. Golf, like life, is a game, one that you play against yourself more than anyone else, and at the end of the round, its not what your final score is, but how you played the game.

I say the final score doesn’t matter for a reason. You could lie and cheat your way through a round of golf, and have a great score to show for your deceit. But you still know how you played, and you know that you lied about it. Still feel good about that 70 you shot last week? Conversely you could play a terrible round, you made mistakes, but you got past them. It took you a while and you’d rather not show your scorecard to anyone at the office, but you did it right. You played the ball as it lay, made the best of every adverse situation, you played the game with class, honestly and openly, regardless of the final outcome.

Of course regardless of how you played the game, you would be lying to yourself if you said that you never once thought about cheating, about scooting your ball a few inches. That is a lot like life too. And maybe you give in to the urge once or twice, thats not uncommon. Does that mean that you’re a bad person, or unsportsmenlike? Not necessarily.

There is a reason why people joke about people lying about their golf game, its because there are SO many people that do. Really, the percentage is pretty overwhelming I would think, just going by the golfers I’ve spoken with. What does that say about us? If golf is a microcosm of our societal value system, then we are in a bit of a pickle. We already know this though. Look around, look at the state of our nation politically, look at the ever-growing criminal element, look at our families, look at our school systems and colleges.

In the end though, that doesn’t really matter I think. Because at the end of the day, those people won’t be able to claim they shot an honest round of golf. They might not want to admit that, but they know it. Its up to them to live with it. Its up to the rest of us to catch them cheating, and confront them about it. That’s our responsibility as golfers, as humans.

Thinking on this, I can’t help but remember the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance. There are a quote from that movie I’d like to leave you with, that kind of personify what I was trying to get at today, and really, they do a better job, in fewer words, than I do.

What I’m talkin about is a game….A game that can’t be won only played….–Bagger Vance