I stood on the tee box of the longest hole I have ever played. I was with Dan, a guy that I originally met when I was stationed in Turkey. We were now both assigned to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. Dan had invited me to play this course with him, and since it was a place where the PGA professionals played, I could not pass the opportunity up. So here we were, at Tucson National Golf Course, about three quarters of the way through our round, and we came to hole 15. Now, for some reason that day, we decided to play from the farthest tee markers. For most of the holes, that meant about 20-30 yards further back from the regular men’s tees. But then, like I said, we came to hole 15. It is a beast of a hole at 610 yards…70 yards longer than the regular tee. The scorecard describes the 15th hole in this way; “No holding back off this tee as you’ll need everything you’ve got to reach this green in three shots.” You think? This is probably a good place to let you know that even though I carried an 8 handicap, I was never a long hitter. My typical drive at this time was about 240 yards. (A person’s handicap means that they should take that many shots higher than par to finish the round. For example, my handicap was 8, so on a par 72 course, I should be able to shoot an 80 for my final score). On this particular hole, I don’t remember how far I hit my drive. That isn’t really important. I’m sure it was somewhere in the 230-240 yard range. If you do the math, I still had about a mile to go to get to the green. Most golfers don’t hit their driver from the fairway, so out came the 3-wood. I hit that about 190-200 yards. Again, do the math and you see that I still had nearly 200 yards to the green. I probably hit that 3-wood again. When I walked off that green, I scored a bogey, which was pretty good considering what I thought I would probably take when I first laid eyes on that 610 yard monster.
When you come to a golf hole like that, it will test your perseverance, your stick-to-it-ness. If you are having a horrible round, you might wonder if you will ever get to the green. If you are shanking the ball left and right, you might be tempted to just pick up your ball and move to the next hole. But if you are committed to persevering, you might just get a good score. And you will undoubtedly learn a valuable lesson.
If you had a dad like mine, you got this lesson early, and you got it a lot. As I was growing up, my dad built, rebuilt, or restored a lot of vehicles. It seemed like he was always tinkering with something. I don’t know the exact number, but I can remember many of them. (Though I admit I there a couple of them that I was unaware of, mostly because I wasn’t yet born.) There was a 1964 Ford Galaxy convertible, a 1964 Lincoln Continental, several Honda motorcycles, and even a 1974 Harley Davidson Electra Glide motorcycle. There was a camper he built from scratch that he then mounted on his pick-up truck. There was an old boat that he bought and turned into a pretty decent bass boat. There was my grandad’s tractor that he repaired and restored. And then there was what I consider the crowning achievement, a 1931 Ford Model A pick-up truck. What he brought home would eventually become a masterpiece, but on that day, it was only a beat-up, hail-dented, rust bucket of a cab (no frame, no engine, no truck bed, no nothing except that cab) that had sat in a farmer’s field for years. When he pulled in the driveway with it on the back of a trailer, my mom questioned what the heck my dad was going to do with it. But more than a year and a half later, it was a beauty.
I can say unequivocally that there is no way I would have kept some of these projects alive. They would have ended up in the trash heap of failure. If you saw the condition of some of them, you might imagine the same future. One more thing about that 1931 Ford. He won numerous car show awards with it. A LOT of people talked about it. Then, years later he sold the truck to an individual who continued taking it to car shows. This guy went around telling people that he built it. I’m sure there were many people who knew what he was saying wasn’t true, but that did not stop him. When my dad learned of what the guy was saying, he searched for him at the next show, and in front of a lot of people, called him out. Ok, no, my dad didn’t do that. In fact, he never said a word about it to anyone, even though he was the one who poured the sweat equity into the truck. But that’s who my dad is, and that’s a lesson for another blog.
Many people today cannot fathom working on something for a great length of time…certainly not something for more than a year. And 18 months? Impossible. But not my dad. He had perseverance to keep after something. Thinking back, watching him day after day work on these cars and trucks and motorcycles (oh my), I now realize it takes perseverance to learn perseverance. That perseverance I learned came in handy, when just about 7 years ago, I set a goal of running 1,000 miles in a year. When I set out on that first day, I simply didn’t realize what I had gotten myself into. Let me explain. If you run everyday, you need to run about 2 3/4 miles each of those days. If you are not feeling it on a particular day, then it means you run 5 1/2 the next. If there is an extended period of sickness or soreness, then it’s…well, you get the picture. At the time, I was assigned to the Pentagon and I traveled a lot. Most travel days were a no-go for running because of the schedule of events. What I am saying is, there were many opportunities for me to throw in the towel and just accept the inevitable. But I found myself slowly making up those missed days. I know I fell behind multiple times, but I would just bear down and get back to the goal of the moment. Then it came down to the last couple of weeks. I was behind quite a bit. But you don’t chase after a goal for 350 days only to quit at the eleventh hour. I remember that it came down to the very last day, and I was 9 1/2 miles behind. I was not home on this day, and I didn’t have my GPS watch. For the life of me, I cannot remember why…I just didn’t. But there was a high school running track. You might realize where I am going with this. A school track is 1/4 mile long, so 4 laps make a mile. Remember I had to run 9 1/2 miles. Yep, that meant 38 laps. If there was any excuse to quit, it was that I had to run 38 times around the same track. But I did it. I persevered. And when I was finished I vowed to never run on a track again.
Now, when you think of the word perseverance, maybe your dad isn’t the first person that comes to mind. That’s ok. Here are a few others that are worthy of mention. Henry Ford is one of the greatest individuals in the history of the automobile. But did you know he failed multiple times in his efforts trying to start an automotive company? Milton Hershey is world famous. I bet you’ve had some of the candy that bears his namesake. Did you know he dropped out of school after the fourth grade? Like Ford, he tried several times to build a company, but success eluded him. He would eventually find that success in creating a company making caramel in Pennsylvania. He later sold that business and formed the Hershey Chocolate Company. Ever wonder where the name of the universal lubricant WD-40 came from? I’ll give you a hint. There were 39 failures before success was realized. All of these prove just how important having perseverance is. Can you imagine if Ford, Hershey, and Norman Larsen (the guy who invented WD-40) gave up and didn’t keep trying? We would not be able to drive our F-150 truck while eating a Hershey candy bar on our way home after helping a friend loosen a rusted bolt with a can of, not WD-14, WD-23 or WD-39, but WD-40. That is what perseverance looks like.
Here’s one more thing that perseverance looks like…a dad teaching his son that when life’s challenges show up to knock you off your feet, you must stay resilient and push on. So, when you barely have a passing grade in that class you are ready to give up on…perseverance. When that 9 to 5 job is getting the best of you…perseverance. When you have tried 39 times to get something right but have fallen short…perseverance. And when you are standing on the tee box of a 610 yard monster par 5…perseverance.
Faith, Leadership, and History 