Have you thought about golf as a family option for fun lately? Admit it, you just said “huh” right? No, I’m serious. These days, we’re growing family units often distracted by “the screen.” According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s report in 2010, “The average 8- to 18-year-old now spends 7-1/2 hours every day with media, from playing video games, to watching TV, to surfing the internet.” I’m not here to say the TV, the internet, the iPad, the smartphone or any other “screen” is the worst thing ever, but I am here to say the truly beautiful things in our lives are still those things that are real, touchable and natural. In other words, virtual is not the real thing…it’s only a synthetic copy.
If you want family time, friend time or even just personal time that is real, golf is a great option. To enjoy golf, you don’t have to be a great player, you just need to be willing to try it and try to enjoy the journey of getting better at the game. Hopefully, you’ll have some family or friends who are doing it with you. Sure, tour players and very skilled amateurs play for traditionally accepted reasons that are tied to their score, but you, your friends or your family, can play for fun!
That’s right, in a new initiative from the PGA of America, you really can play just for fun! The initiative is called the “It’s Okay” program. If you go visit Kevin Coombs, PGA Certified Golf Professional and his staff at the Green Mountain Golf Course, Vancouver, WA, they encourage “It’s Okay” golf: it’s okay not to play by the rules, it’s okay to tee up your ball in the fairway, it’s okay to take your ball out of the bunker, it’s okay to move your ball away from a tree. In fact, it’s okay to pick up and go to the next hole if you’ve had enough “fun” for that hole and it’s okay to not even keep score. [If you’re a traditional golfer, please avoid frowning at this thought now. The “It’s Okay” approach may not be golf to you, but it could be to someone else.]
All Coombs and other smart operators, like Tri-Mountain’s PGA Professional, Mike Bender, expect is that all golfers care for the course and keep up their position with the group immediately in front of theirs. In this way, someone playing golf by the “It’s Okay” plan can play in front of or behind a “traditional” golfer and both can enjoy their experience equally. If you ask me, the only other “not okay” activity is frowning on the course. After all, it’s a game and you’re not at work. Cracking down on “frowners” is a difficult area to police, so you and your friends will have to do that on the honor system.
