Health Benefits of Golf

William L. Healy, MD

Lahey Health

Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Boston University School of Medicine

Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Medicine, Harvard University

 

Introduction

The health benefits of golf were first mentioned in a print publication by William Ramesey in 1672 in London, England, and in 1904, John Ward wrote an essay titled “The Benefits and Charms of Golf as an Outdoor Exercise”. For more than a century, in medical and non-medical publications, doctors, scientists, exercise physiologists, physical therapists, psychologists, and the golf industry have extolled the virtues of golf as contributing to individual and public health.

In 2018, the British Journal of Sports Medicine summarized knowledge regarding the health benefits of golf when they published a systematic literature review, “International Consensus Statement on Golf and Health.”

This white paper was developed during the Covid-19 pandemic to educate and inform allied golf associations and government officials regarding the physical, mental, and public health benefits of golf.

Physical Health Benefits of Golf

Increased Life Expectancy

• Playing golf regularly is associated with increased longevity.
• A study of 300,000 male and female golfers in Sweden documented life expectancy for golfers was five years longer than for non-golfers.

Improved Cardiac Health and Aerobic Performance

• Golf provides moderate intensity aerobic physical activity.
• Golf is a high intensity interval activity for elderly men.
• An eighteen hole round of golf is associated with 10,000-12,000 steps, walking 7000-8000 yards, burning 1500-2500 calories, and maintaining a heart rate of 100 beats per minute for two to five hours.
• Golf provides physical activity for persons of all ages.
• Physical health benefits are greater for golfers who walk the golf course compared to golfers who ride in motorized carts.

Improved Cardiac Risk Factors

• Walking the golf course is associated with decreased Total Cholesterol, increased High Density Lipoprotein (HDL), and an increased ratio of HDL to Total Cholesterol
• The favorable impact of golf on these cardiac risk factors is a health benefit.

Blood Glucose Control

• During an eighteen hole round of golf, Blood Glucose decreased 20% for young golfers, 10% for middle aged golfers, and 30% for elderly golfers.

Weight Control

• Walking the golf course is associated with decreased Weight and Body Mass Index for golfers as compared to non-golfers.
• Walking the golf course is associated with weight reduction, decreased waist circumference, and reduced abdominal skin fold thickness.

Golfers Who Ride Golf Carts Realize Health Benefits

• Motorized golf carts allow senior and disabled persons to play golf.
• Golfers who ride golf carts appreciate physical health benefits from physical activity and outdoor exercise.
• Golfers who ride golf carts experience mental health benefits from social interaction and competition.

Improved Strength, Balance, and Fall Prevention

• Playing golf provides strength and balance for older adults.
• Senior male golfers have better balance, increased balance confidence, and less fear of falling than age matched non-golfers.

Reduced Risk of Chronic Health Conditions

• The physical activity associated with golf reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, Type 2 Diabetes, Colon Cancer, Breast Cancer, Depression, and Dementia

Sleep Enhancement

• Golf exercise is associated with ease of falling asleep and deeper, more profound sleep.

Reduced Mortality

• Mortality for golfers was 40% less than mortality for non-golfers in a cohort of 300,000 Swedish golfers, and this benefit applied to men and women of all ages. Interestingly, low handicap golfers had the lowest mortality rate.
• Risk of mortality for men, who participated in moderately vigorous physical activity, such as golf, was 23% lower than for men who did not exercise. The study population included 10,000 men 45-84 years old.

 

Mental Health Benefits of Golf

Improved Self Esteem and Self Worth

• Playing golf is associated with improved self-worth and self-esteem.

Reduced Anxiety and Stress

• Golf provides exercise and social interaction in a pleasant environment, which can reduce anxiety and lower stress.

Reduced Impact of Depression

• Exercise, including golf, decreases the impact of depression for women golfers, who have a depression condition.
• The impact of golf on depression in men has not been reported.

Inter-Generational Connection

• Golf offers opportunities for inter-generational connection.
• Family relationships can be strengthened by golf experiences.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

• Golf is used as a treatment for military veterans suffering from PTSD.

Treatment for Degenerative Brain Condition

• Golf training for adults older than 65 years improves immediate logical memory, delayed logical memory, and composite logical memory compared to senior adults who do not play golf.
• Golf is used for patients with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease to reduce the isolation of the disease with time spent in the peaceful environment of the golf course.

Treatment for Substance Abuse

• Golf has been used successfully for therapy for persons battling substance abuse.

 

Public Health Benefits of Golf

Recreation

• 70% of golf facilities in Massachusetts are open to the public
• Golf allows men and women of all ages to exercise and enjoy the outdoors.
• Junior Golf programs foster positive development on and off the golf course
• Recreational and competitive golf provides an outlet for personal and professional stress.

Preservation of Open Space & Protection for the Environment

• Playing golf provides golfers a connection to nature and the environment.
• 91% of golf course acreage is green space, which provides habitat, migration corridors, and food for wildlife in the surrounding environment.
• Trees on golf courses provide shade, protect land from erosion, remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and add oxygen to the air.
• Sustainable agronomic practices at golf courses protect water resources.

Golf “Gives Back to the Commonwealth”

• Golf in Massachusetts “gives back” more than $75 million annually with charitable activities, scholarships, and philanthropic donations

Golf Can Be Played Safely in 2020

• The Golf Alliance of Washington summarized sixteen steps for creating a safe golfing environment during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.
• The incidence of injury from playing golf is lower than most other athletic activities.
• Golf injuries are generally associated with overuse, trauma, and poor mechanics during the golf swing.
• The most severe golf injuries are associated with motorized golf carts.
• Skin cancer can be a risk for golfers if appropriate precautions regarding sun exposure are not followed.

 

Conclusion

Medical and non-medical publications demonstrate that golf offers physical, mental, and public health benefits to golfers and to the Commonwealth.

I will conclude this white paper on the Health Benefits of Golf, with a 1935 letter by the poet, Robert Frost, in which he expounded on his theory of mental health for humanity. Frost believed that “form” was a necessary and “vital need for humanity” to survive and prosper against a background of “black and utter chaos” full of “large excruciations”.  Frost’s suggestion for “form” can take any shape — a book, a letter, a garden, a ring of smoke — but it is really everybody’s “sanity to feel and exert a measure of form in this world.”  What better way to exert form and concentration but in an ordered round of golf in the pleasant environment of a golf course?

 

 

 

Acknowledgement: Several family and friends assisted with the development of this white paper. Thank you Tom Bagley, Mike Considine, Angela Healy, Rich Iorio, Scott Seymour.

 

WLH
Concord, MA
May 1, 2020
whealy@lahey.org
References for Health Benefits of Golf
William L. Healy, MD

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Broman G, Johnson L, Kaijser L. Golf: A High Intensity Interval Activity for Elderly Men. Aging Clinical and Experimental Research. 16: 5: 375-381. 2004.
Cabri J, Sousa JP, Kots M, Barreiros J. Golf Related Injuries: A Systematic review. European Journal of Sport Science, 9:6:353-366, November 2009.
CannAP, Vandevoort AA, Lindsay DM. Optimizing the Benefits versus Risks of Golf Participation by Older People. J. Geriatric Physical Therapy, 2005; 28:85-92.
Coate D, Schwenkenberg J. Survival Function Estimates for Champion Tour Golfers. Journal of Sports Economics, 2013; 14:656-663.
Del Bos J, Fernandez-Morono T, Padilla-Espana L, Aguilar-Bernier M, Rivas-Ruiz F, de Troya-Martin M. Skin Cancer Prevention and Detection Campaign at Golf Courses on Spain’s Costa del Sol. Actas Dermo-Sifiliograficas. 106:1:51-60. 2015.
Farahmand B, Broman G, de Faire U, Vagero D, Ahlbom A. Golf: A Game of Life and Death—Reduced Mortality in Swedish Golf Players. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports 2009: 19: 419-424.
Frost, Robert. Letter to the Amherst Student, Amherst, MA. March 25, 1935
Gao KL, Hui-Chan CWY, Tsang WWN. Golfers Have Better Balance Control and Confidence Than Healthy Controls. European Journal of Applied Physiology. 2011: 111: 2805-2812.
Golf Alliance of Washington. Letter to Governor Inslee. April 10, 2020.
Health Fitness Revolution. Top 10 Health Benefits of Golf. February 8, 2020.
Levins K. 5 Mental Health Benefits You Get From Golf. GolfDigest.com. April 8, 2020.
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McCarthy S, Paul L, O’Connell M. Skin Cancer Awareness Among Irish Golfers. South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital, Cork, Ireland.
McGwin G, Zoghby JT, Griffin R, Rue LW. Incidence of Golf Cart Related Injury in the United States. Journal of Trauma, Injury, Infection, and Critical Care. 64:6:1562-1566. June 2008.
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Paffenbargar, RS, Hyde RT, Wing AL, Lee IM, Jung DL, Kampert JB. The Association of Changes in Physical Activity Level and Other Lifestyle Characteristics with Mortality among Men. NEJM. 328, 8, 538-545. February 25, 1995.
Palank EA, Hargreaves EH. The Benefits of Walking the Golf Course: Effects on Liprprotein Levels and Risk Ratios. The Physician and Sports Medicine. 18: 10: 77-80. 1990.
Parkkari J, Natri A, Kannus P, Manttari A, Laukkanen R, Haapasalo H, Nenonen A, Pasanen M, Oja P, Vuori I. A Controlled Trial of the Health Benefits of Regular Walking on the Golf Course. American Journal of Medicine, 109: 102-108, August 1, 2000.
Ramesey, W. Etiquette and Manners of Nobility, Conduct of Life, Health Benefits of Golf. Published by Rowland Reynolds, London, England, 1672.
Roald, E. 7 Health Benefits of Golf—Why Golf is Good for Body and Mind. European Institute of Golf Course Architects. January 18, 2016.
Shimada H, Akishita M, Kozaki K, Iijima K, Nagai K, Ischii S, Tanaka M, Koshiba H, Tanaka T, Toba K. Effects of Golf Traing on Cognition in Older Adults.: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 72: 10: 944-950. October 2018.
Stover CN, Mallon WJ. Golf Injuries: Treating the Play to Treat the Player. Journal of Musculoskeletal Medicine, October 1992.
Tsang WW, Hui-Chan CW. Effects of Exercise on Joint Sense and Balance in Elederly Men: Tai Chi versus Golf. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 2004; 36: 658-667.
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WLH
Concord, MA
April 20, 2020

The Laws of Golf

LAW 1:
No matter how bad your last shot was, you should have Inner Peace knowing that aworse one is yet to come.  This law does not expire on the 18th hole, since it has the supernatural tendency to extend over the course of a tournament, a summer and, eventually, a lifetime.

LAW 2:
Your best round of golf will be followed almost immediately by your worst round ever. The probability of the latter increases with the number of people you tell about the former.

LAW 3:
Brand-new golf balls are water-magnetic.  Though this cannot be proven in the lab, it is a known fact that the more expensive the golf ball, the greater its attraction to water. Expensive clubs have been known to be partly made with this most unusual natural alloy.

LAW 4:
Golf balls never bounce off of trees back into play.  If one does, the tree is breaking a law of the universe and should be cut down.

LAW 5:
The higher a golfer’s handicap, the more qualified he deems himself an instructor.

LAW 6:
A golfer hitting into your group will always be bigger than anyone in your group. Likewise, a group you accidentally hit into will consist of a football player, a professional wrestler, a convicted murderer and an IRS agent — or some similar combination.

LAW 7:
All 3-woods are demon-possessed.  Your mother-in-law does not come close.

LAW 8:
Golf balls from the same “sleeve” tend to follow one another, particularly out of bounds or into the water.   See LAW 3.

LAW 9:
The last three holes of a round will automatically adjust your score to what it really should be.

LAW 10:
Golf should be given up at least twice a month.

LAW 11:
All vows taken on a golf course shall be valid only until the sunset.

LAW 12:
Since bad shots come in groups of three, your fourth consecutive bad shot is really the beginning of the next group of three.

LAW 13:
If it isn’t broke, try changing your grip.

LAW 14:
It’s surprisingly easy to hole a 50-foot putt when you lie 8. (THIS is how the one-handed putting started!)

LAW 15:
Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut.

LAW 16:
Nonchalant putts count the same as chalant putts.

LAW 17:
It’s not a gimme if you’re still 4 feet away.

LAW 18:
The shortest distance between any two points on a golf course is a straight line that passes directly through the center of a very large tree.

LAW 19:
You can hit a 2-acre fairway 10 percent of the time, and a 2-inch branch 90 percent of the time.

LAW 20:
Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make a double or triple bogey to restore the fundamental equilibrium of the universe.

LAW  21:
If you want to hit a 7-iron as far as Tiger Woods does, simply try to use it to lay up just short of a water hazard.

LAW 22:
There are two things you can learn by stopping your backswing at the top and checking the position of your hands: (i) how many hands you have, and (ii) which one is wearing the glove.

LAW  23:
A ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is not yours.

LAW  24:
Don’t buy a putter until you’ve had a chance to throw it.

 

– Special thanks to trusty reader Mike V. for making sure we’re keeping the game honest.

A Fragile Blue World

by Jim Dodson

 

While digging out an old flowerbed the other day I found, of all things, a beautiful blue marble long buried beneath a foot of earth.

I decided it was either evidence of a lost race of marble-playing pioneers or simply belonged to kid who lost it in the dirt when our house was built in the early 1950s. That kid would now be at least 70 years old.

Either way, this beautiful blue marble, resting in the palm of my soiled palm, reminded me of an image of the planet taken by the crew of the final Apollo mission as they made their way to the Moon, a photograph dubbed the “Blue Marble” because it revealed a fragile blue world that is home to “billions of creatures, a beautiful orb capable of fitting into the pocket of the universe,” as NASA elegantly put it. Looking at the beautiful blue planet Earth from space, one astronaut was moved to say that it appears so peaceful and calm it’s almost impossible to believe it is a world endangered by poverty, war and disease.

Some experts believe marbles are the oldest toys on Earth, found by archeologists in the ashes of Pompeii and the tombs of ancient Egypt, mentioned in Homer’s The Odyssey and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Even the Founding Fathers of America were known to play a mean game of marbles during idle moments making up a nation.

The earliest marbles were made of dried and molded clay. In the mid-19th century, however, a German glassblower invented a pair of special scissors that could cut and shape molten glass, making glass marbles affordable for the first time. Glass marbles quickly dominated the world toy market, particularly after industrial machines made them more efficiently, dramatically lowering the price. “Valued as much for their beauty as the games played with them,” the National Toy Hall of Fame notes, “marbles inspired one 19th-century enthusiast to describe the twisted spiral of colored filament in glass marbles as ‘thin music translated into colored glass.’

Because my family was always on the move during my first seven years of life – following my father’s newspaper career across the deep South – I had few if any regular playmates and plenty of time to fill up during endless summer afternoon in small southern towns. Adventure books, marbles and painted Roman armies filled quiet hours when only the lonesome sound of cicadas in love filled the hot, still air.

Everywhere we lived from Mississippi to South Carolina, however, I always managed to find myself a cool and comfortable patch of earth beneath a porch or a large tree where I played out the Peloponnesian War or shot marbles in a large ring scratched into the dirt.

I got pretty good at shooting marbles, often whipping my dad when he came home from work and stepped outside with a cold beer just to see if I had any interest in coming to supper, squatting to play me a quick game in the dirt. The object of the game we played was to knock as many marbles outside the ring without having your “shooter” wind up outside the circle. I forget who told me that it was good luck to play with a marble that matched the color of your eyes. My favorite shooter was blue. So are my eyes, I’m told.

I could spin and skip marbles like nobody’s business in those days, or so I like to think, and even carried a small sack of my favorite marbles wherever my family went on vacations or – worse — visited elderly relatives. Politely excused, advised not to wander far, I could slip outside and find the nearest patch of earth for a little marble shooting practice in no time flat.
Marbles was the first game I ever fell I love with. But not the last.

For along came the spring and summer of 1964. I watched Arnold Palmer win his fourth and final Masters green jacket on TV and immediately took to swinging a golf club in the yard, within a year or so fashioning a list of things I hoped to do in golf. At the top of the list was my goal to someday meet the new King of Golf.

That summer, however, I made the Pet Dairy Little League team and began reading about Brooks Robinson, the “Human Vacuum Cleaner” in the sports pages. Robinson played third base for the Baltimore Orioles. I laid hands on an official Brooks Robinson fielder’s glove, vowing that in the unlikely event that I didn’t grow up to be the next Arnold Palmer I might become the next Brooks Robinson instead.

In effect, I lost my marbles that summer of ’64 – or at least put them away forever.

Arnie won the Masters and Robinson had his best season offensively, hitting for a .318 batting average with 28 home runs. He also led the league with 118 runs batted in, capturing the American League’s MVP Award and his tenth Golden Glove.  In the American League MVP voting, Robinson received 18 of the 20 first-place votes, with Mickey Mantle finishing second, much to my Uncle Carson’s delight.

He’s the one who took me to my first Major League ballgame when I got sent up that summer to spend a week with my mother’s big blond sisters and their husbands in Baltimore. Uncle Carson was a giant Irishman who worked at the Kelly tire factory and had a pair of season tickets to “the Birds,” as he fondly called the hometown Orioles. He detested Mickey Mantle. “I’d like to knock that smug smile that overpaid showboat’s kisser,” he growled during the pre-game warm-ups as both teams took the field in old Memorial Stadium.

Uncle Carson’s seats were a dozen rows back along the third base line. He encouraged me to bring along my new Brooks Robinson fielder’s glove, promising that I could get it autographed by “Human Vacuum Cleaner” himself during warm-ups.

Sure enough, when Robinson appeared on the field, stretching and chatting with other players, including detestable Yankees, Uncle Carson sent me scurrying down to the dugout where other kids were hanging over the railing in search of autographs.

When Robinson ambled over, I showed him my new mitt and asked him to sign it.

He obliged. “Sure, kid. Where you from?”

In truth, I have no memory what he actually said to me. I was much too tongue-tied and star struck at that moment.

Up in the stands, however, as Mickey Mantle sauntered past, Uncle Carson cupped his massive hands to his mouth and hollered, “Hey, Mantle! You’re a stinking bum! You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn if they pitched underhand to you!”

For the record, I’m not sure this is exactly what Uncle Carson yelled at Mickey Mantle, either. But it’s certainly within the ballpark, as they say, because Uncle Carson was a world-class heckler, a one-man leather lung, the ultimate obnoxious Oriole. Mickey Mantle just laughed and kept walking.

When I got back to our seats, Uncle C was buying cups of beer from a vendor.

“How old are you now?” He asked.

“Eleven,” I answered truthfully.

“That’s good enough.” He handed me a National Bohemian beer, my first ballpark beer. As we stood for the national anthem, placing a massive paw over his heart, he added, “By the way, Squire, your aunt Leona and mom didn’t need to know everything that happens at the ball park. Including Natty Boh. You follow?”

I nodded and sipped my beer. It was great to be alive.

Funny thing about life on a spinning blue marble, though.

Despite my best efforts, I failed to become the next Arnold Palmer or Human Vacuum Cleaner. But at least I grew up to collaborate with The King of Golf on his bestselling memoirs, becoming a close friend of the game’s most charismatic figure.

Some years ago, I even had the chance to tell Brooks Robinson about my Uncle Carson’s remarkable leather lung at a dinner where I was the guest of honor for my sports journalism and books. The event’s host had secretly invited the greatest third baseman of all time to sit beside the honoree, who was nearly as tongue-tied and star struck as he was in 1964.

“I think I remember your Uncle Carson,” Robison told me with a laugh. “Or at least a few hundred other guys like him – especially up in Yankee Stadium. Those loud mouths made your uncle look like minor league player, I’m afraid.”

We had a fine time chatting about the Oriole’s golden seasons and lamented their cellar-dwelling ways these days. In 1966, Robinson finished second to teammate Frank Robinson in voting for the American League Most Valuable Player Award. But the Orioles went on to win their first World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In the 1970 post-season, Robinson hit for an average of .583 in the American League Championship, leading the way to a second World Series title for the Birds. It was Robinson’s defensive prowess, however, that earned him the Series MVP and prompted Reds manager Sparky Anderson to quip, “I’m beginning to see Brooks in my sleep. If I dropped this paper plate, he’d pick it up on one hop and throw me out at first.”

At the end of his final season in 1977, having collected 16 Golden Gloves as baseball’s top defensive player, Robinson’s number 5 was officially retired. Five years later he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot. “It all seemed to pass so quickly,” he told me that night we ate supper together. “But my goodness what great memories!”

A few years after this encounter, I sat with Arnold Palmer just weeks before he passed away, catching up on his family and mine, even drifting into the subject of boyhood dreams. He told me a story that I’d heard before about how as a little kid he dreamed that he might someday become a famous football star – to impress certain girls. But then the golf bug bit him.

“I’m glad you stuck with golf,” I said.
He already knew that once upon a time that I’d hoped to become the next Arnold Palmer but had an alternate plan to be the second coming of Brooks Robinson if that failed to pan out. I even told him about.

The King smiled. “I think you got pretty much what you wanted,” he said.

“So did you.”

I even told him about Uncle Carson and his leather lung.

The King chuckled. “I’m glad you never brought him to the golf course.”

As another summer looms, the world in 2020 is a very different place.

Stadiums and ballparks across the world are sitting empty, haunted by echoes of seasons past.

For the moment, memories are all we’ve got. For nobody can say when – or even if – the games will begin again anytime soon.

Having lost all my marbles but found a blue one buried in the earth of my own garden, I’m probably where I should be at this moment and time on a fragile blue planet, lucky to have a world I can hold in my palm of my hand, and remember.

 

 

Jim Dodson’s latest book, The Range Bucket List, tells these stories and other tales from his long journey through the world of golf and sports.

The Hunger Games

In spite of no-go zones, there are still some to-go eateries

By Billy Eye

 

In 1997, when I moved to the center of the city, downtown was a ghost town. The only things missing were the tumbleweeds. I remember taking friends visiting from Detroit on a tour of downtown Greensboro on a Friday at 5 p.m. They wondered if a nuclear bomb had gone off since there were no people walking around or cars passing by. When a car did finally appear, its occupants yelled obscenities at us; it was such an affront to see common people walking the streets, I’m guessing.

Downtown is again lacking in traffic, spiritless. Just in terms of restaurants, popular downtown eateries that gave to-go a go before shuttering in place include Liberty Oak, Bonchon, Grey’s Tavern, Europa Bar and Cafe, Chez Genèse, M’Coul’s Public House, Smith Street Diner, Poke Bowl, and Natty Greene’s.

Things are changing week to week but I was able to get takeout the other day from a couple of my fave eateries on South Elm, Cincy’s and Los Chico’s. Cincy’s has been around since 1986 and was unsure if they’ll continue takeout this week. Some days business is good I’m told, others dead.

I appreciate getting authentic Mexican food at Los Chico’s, despite the misplaced apostrophe in their name. They’ve only been open a few months and are offering their regular menu along with take-and-bake, family-sized meals. Smõhk’d, as the name suggests, serves up smoky meats in to-go manner after 3 p.m. Machete, another new startup, has adapted to changing times with sparkling plates of curbside global cuisine, I need to give them a try.

Pizzeria L’Italiano, Cheesecakes By Alex and Jerusalem Market are all keeping (somewhat) normal hours thank goodness, a glimmer of normality.

Outside of downtown, my regular spots for lunch have always been Saigon Cuisine on Gate City and Merritt, Freeman’s Grub & Pub and Jake’s Billiards on Spring Garden. All are operating, Jake’s and Freeman’s from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Like a daisy blooming from a crack in the concrete, there’s new life in an overlooked corner of downtown. Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed major excavation on a site along a side street that runs parallel to the 400 block of Spring Garden, behind the defunct Moorhead Foundry. It consists of what will likely be a large parking lot fronting an event space that I’m not familiar with called The Public that’s now been merged into a former office building. Could it be another brewery? I’ll drink to that!

 

—

Billy Eye has his own Vlog, check out the latest episode here.

Chasing the Moon
By Jim Dodson

 

 

Like my father before me, it’s the rare morning I’m not up by four o’clock. The dark hours before dawn, I find, are the most peaceful and productive of the day, the time I read and write or sometimes just sit and drink my coffee and try to make sense of a world that often seems poised to come apart at the seams.

In her brilliant new book, Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor sheds light on how vital the nighttime and darkness are to our physical and spiritual well-being, yet how most of us from childhood onward have been conditioned to fear the dark and associate our worst fears with it – boogeymen under the bed, burglars afoot, animals on the prowl, nightmares, insomnia, dark nights of the soul.

The Bible speaks of the forces of light and darkness throughout, and the light of a new day is always preferable to the mysterious darkness. Be home by dark, our parents warned us. We lock our doors at night just to be safe; we put on the light.

Evil is dark. Goodness is light – or so we are taught to believe.

In a world where intensely illuminated cities increasingly blot out the Earth’s natural darkness, blurring the lines between night and day, Barbara Brown laments the loss of darkness and notes how wrong it is to curse it.

“Darkness turns out to be as essential to our physical well-being as light,” she writes. “We not only need plenty of darkness to sleep well, we also need it to be well. The circadian rhythm of waking and sleeping matches the natural cycle of day and night, which affects everything from our body chemistry to our relationships.”

Wednesday morning was no exception. I rose at my usual time – quarter till four – made coffee and stepped outside to my back garden to look at the moon.

The full moon of October is known as the Hunter’s Moon because in ancient times native people hunted by its light, special because it’s typically up all night, rising at sunset and setting at dawn.

It’s also called the Blood Moon because in its setting phase an hour or so before dawn, eclipsed by the shadow of Earth as it passes directly between the sun and the moon, the sun’s returning light, refracted though earth’s atmosphere, casts it in a ruddy red glow on the surface of the moon – hence the reference to blood.

Wednesday’s Blood Moon was the second one this year, the first having occurred last April around Passover and Easter. In a rare celestial event that has reportedly only happened three other times in the past 500 years, Blood Moons will come again next year in April and late October.

Much of the interest in these Blood Moons centers around Biblical prophecy that holds these rare celestial events – four blood moons in back-to-back years, also called a tetrad by astronomers — herald significant changes for the Jewish people, meaning tragedy that leads to triumph.

In 1492-93, as part of a royal decree that ordered Jews to convert to Catholicism or leave their country, Spain expelled thousands of Jews. That same year, however, Columbus discovered America, which eventually became the world’s safe haven for the Jewish people.
In 1948, following the Holocaust, after 2,000 years of struggle, the state of Israel came into being under Blood Moons.

In 1967, Israel’s triumph in a brutal Six Day War with its Arab neighbors resulted in Jerusalem becoming part of Israel along with the Sinai, Golan Heights and West Bank of the Jordan River.

As I sat on my garden bench in the darkness drinking my coffee and enjoying the sound of the last crickets of summer, waiting for the celestial moon show to start around 5:30, it was natural to remember something I learned way back in my childhood Sunday School days — that whatever name you chose to give the divine force of love that shapes our universe, celestial “signs” are simply one way a loving God communicates with anxious humans trembling in the darkness.

Who can consider the unsettling events of late and not feel in their gut that something is shaking up the planet, urging us to wake up and shake off our indifference. As the Middle East unravels into chaos and the ISIS reign of terror expands with apparent impunity, Ebola is on the march out of Africa and America seems to be sleep-walking into the unknown.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that 40 percent of the world’s wildlife has vanished in just the past forty years, but few seem to notice. Another respected wildlife monitor raises the alarm that a third of the world’s songbirds have vanished. A number of reasons why are cited, including rampant global warming, deforestation, air and water pollution and loss of natural habitat.

As I sat thinking about these terrestrial signs of change and whatever they may portend – a new Black Plague or the mother of all earthquakes — waiting for the rare lunar eclipse to start, old Rufus the cat came waddling back from his night time travels just as the back door opened and my wife appeared in her bathrobe, clutching her own cup of coffee.

What a nice surprise – to see her up so early, something that also happens only four times every 500 years.

We sat together on the bench in silence for a bit, almost like people at prayer, surrounded by the serenity of darkness and the music of the early birds. We talked about our children and watched through the pines as the moon slipped beautifully into the Earth’s shadow. The stars were out and we picked out the planet Uranus and Little dipper pouring its light directly over our house.

“There is one cure for me on nights like this,” writes Barbara Brown Taylor. “If I can summon the energy to put on my bathrobe and go outside , the night sky will heal me – not by reassuring me that I will be just fine, but by reminding me of my place in the universe. Looking up at the same stars that human beings have been looking at for millennia, I find my place near the end of the long, long line of stargazers who stood here before me.”

As we watched, Old Rufus, the wife and me, the moon slipped into the umbra, the darkest part of the Earth’s shadow, producing a reddish glow that bloomed like a blushing Japanese lantern.

“Isn’t that beautiful?” Dame Wendy was moved to remark – at least as much to the heavens as to Old Rufus and me.

As the moon moved lower in the pines and the first light of a new day brightened the sky to the east, we did something purely for the fun of it. Mama in her fuzzy bathrobe, Papa in his tattered Indian moccasins, we hopped in the car and chased the ancient Blood Moon toward the western horizon.

Like children following an untethered balloon, we followed the vanishing moon from darkness to light, all the way out Highway 211 to Samarkand, at which point, somewhere over a peach orchard that has given up its fruit for another year, the Blood Moon melted into the golden light of dawn.

It was a lovely sunrise, I must say, driving home. We held hands with the car windows down, enjoying the rush of cool morning air.

The moment made me wish – hope to believe – that the darkness before dawn is healing and America might also soon be waking up.

 

This “Simple Life” story first appeared in October 2014 in O.Henry magazine.

Remembrances of Things Daft

By Annie Gray Sprunt

 

First and foremost, I would like to thank God, Buddha and Mister Rogers that I do not have school-aged children home who I am responsible for educating…it would not have been pretty. During this coronavirus pandemic, I am desperately trying to embrace my inner introvert, but it’s not going well. Gwyneth Paltrow renamed her divorce “conscious uncoupling.” Well, that’s what I need to do with the news and the refrigerator. I watch my hair color becoming more “distinguished” and listen as my faux eyelashes hit the floor, one by one, like the needles on a Christmas tree. I have arranged the canned goods alphabetically, but I might go back and rearrange them by color. I have cleaned every nook of my house, including the cleaning supplies. I’ve ironed everything except the pets. I have read so many books, it feels like the last week of summer when I used to binge-read my summer reading list.

During this unprecedented time of uncertainty, I could sit around, sans proper foundation garments, wringing my hands, feet and earlobes, or I could turn to what helps me cope (other than sauvignon blanc and Jamoca Almond Fudge ice cream)…..humor. As my gift of distraction to you, please turn off the news, sit back and enjoy some random nuggets of ridiculousness.

Growing up in the Episcopal church, a young person couldn’t receive Communion until they completed confirmation class. Pre-confirmed children would remain in the pew while their parents went up to the altar to receive Communion. Years before I understood what Communion meant—the minister offers a wafer symbolizing the body of the Lord and wine symbolizing the blood of the Lord—I (loudly) whispered to my friend in the neighboring pew….”It’s not blood, it’s only ketchup!”

In the third grade I wanted to have a birthday party, and I insisted on writing my own invitations. On the invitation, I wrote, “Please bring your sleeping bag and a present.” Luckily, my mother intercepted and deleted my audacious present request.

Twenty-four years ago, when my son was about two years old, I actually called my pediatrician, Dr. Charles Brett, on the after-hours office emergency line. I left a message: “Dr. Brett, I think something is terribly wrong with my son (remember, he was two years old)….he won’t do anything I tell him to do.” You know that receptionist replayed that message to the staff every day as confirmation that I qualified for the Dingbat Mother of the Year award!

In my wayward youth, I developed a love of pranks—surprising, I know! (That durn caller ID has cramped my style.) I went to a tiny school with no more than 25 people per class. It rarely snowed but when it did, we were all thrilled because school would be cancelled. The local television weatherman suggested that perhaps there might be an itty-bitty hint of a possibility for snow. So what did I do? I called the local television station and identify myself as Margaret Higgins from the school and cancelled school. And they did. And guess what? It did not snow, but we had a free snow day! (Since then, there is a security code word to ward off bored middle- school pranksters.)

And for those of you who could not get enough of my Boston adventures in last month’s issue, here are a few more grisly details. During my investment boutique interview, I was offered the job and my boss-to-be explained the particulars. Then he said a phrase that was unfamiliar to me. He said, “After a year, you can have a week off.” Clearly, he had not seen my calendar for the upcoming year and didn’t understand. I told him that I had to go home for at least a week for Thanksgiving and at least a week for Christmas, and that my uncle always had a 4th of July party that I just couldn’t miss. And I also told him that I was scheduled to be a bridesmaid in 12 upcoming weddings and I would probably have to take off Wednesday afternoons before each wedding weekend so I wouldn’t miss any of the festivities. Dear reader, I got that job because he thought that if he didn’t hire me, he had no faith that anyone else would. I was a charity hire. He didn’t understand that I wasn’t working because I wanted to be an award-winning secretary, I was working to have something to do between weddings.

Helpful hint for these trying times: think of your martini glass as half-full!

 

Annie Gray Sprunt is a Wilmingtonian, award-winning mother, and self-deprecating bon vivant.

The King of Everyman

By James Dodson

Global Golf

Originally published in October 2016

 

 

Around five o’clock last Sunday afternoon my wife Wendy and I were watching a late afternoon football game when I was suddenly felt overcome by a chill and uncommon queasiness and needed to go upstairs to lie down for an hour before friends came for supper.

I’m rarely sick and assumed this peculiar spell was simply brought on by fatigue from working since four in the morning on a golf book I’ve been writing for almost two years, a personal tale called the Range Bucket List.

The first chapter and the last one are about my friend, collaborator and boyhood hero Arnold Palmer.

The first chapter explains that he was the first name on what I called my Things to Do in Golf List around1966 after falling hard for my father’s game and reading somewhere that my Arnold Palmer started out in golf by keeping a similar list of things he intended to do in the game. Many decades later, while interviewing him one morning early in his workshop in Latrobe, I confirmed this fact with the King of Golf.

The final chapter details the emotional visit I made to see him at home in Latrobe about a month before his 87th birthday. I knew he wasn’t doing particularly well. When I walked into his rustic house on Legends Drive in the unincorporated Village of Youngstown on the outskirts of Latrobe, I found the King of Golf watching an episode of Gunsmoke, the number one American TV show about the time Arnold Palmer was the world’s number one golfer.

He greeted me warmly without getting up. A walker was standing nearby. His second wife, Kitt, brought me a cold drink. He turned down the sound and we had a nice time catching up, almost — but not quite — like many intimate conversations we’d over over the past two decades. Arnold’s once seemingly invincible blacksmith body had finally given out yet his mind and spirit were strong. He insisted on joining Doc Giffin, his longtime assistant, Kitt and me for an early supper that evening across the vale at Latrobe Country Club.

The trip was like a homecoming for me – and something I feared would be a farewell.

For two full years from early 1997 to late 1999 I had the privilege of serving as Arnold Palmer’s collaborator on his autobiography A Golfer’s Life. I was deeply honored to have been chosen by Arnold and wife Winnie for the project, and touched that he insisted that my name share the cover and title page of the work. I always called the book his book. He always called the book our book.

Not long after we began working it – both being unusually early risers who often chatted in his home workshops before official business hours — Winnie was diagnosed with a form of ovarian cancer and Arnie – which is what he insisted I call him, though I never could quite make myself do so – withdrew from his busy public life so we could get the book completed and published before time took its toll, narrowing the horizon of what was supposed to be a three year project to just under two.

We brought the book out in time to celebrate Arnold’s 70th birthday in September 1999 and the opening of a beautiful restored red barn that Winnie had always loved just off the 14th fairway at the same club where Arnold grew up under the firm watch of his demanding papa, Deacon Palmer, whom Arnold simply called “Pap.”

Rather than a conventional autobiography of facts and figures and tournament highlights, my objective with Arnold’s book was to create an unusually warm and intimate reminiscence or memoir that read as if Arnold and his fans were simply sharing a drink after a day of golf and he was quietly relating the 15 or so key moments of his life, revealing how these moments shaped the most influential golfer in history and arguably America’s greatest sportsman ever.

Both the Winnie’s barn and Arnold’s book were a hit. The book was on the bestseller list for almost half a year. The handsome red barn stands in quiet tribute to them both. Winnie passed away less than two months after that special evening Arnold turned 70.

After lying down and lightly dozing for an hour, I heard our guests arriving and got up to go downstairs. The cold and queasiness had passed and I felt much better — only to find my wife waiting at the bottom of the steps holding out my mobile phone with a very sad look on her face.

A nice person named Molly from NBC News in New York was on the other end, wanting to know if I could confirm a report that Arnold Palmer had passed away.

We spoke for an hour as my incoming call alert continued to light up from news organization around the world. By midnight I’d spoken with reporters from all the major networks, several cable news organizations, CNN International, a pair of wire services, the Canadian Broadcasting System and Australia’s leading sports call-in show – all of it testament to the drawing power of Arnold Daniel Palmer.

The conversations about his unprecedented life and times and seismic impact on popular culture and the world of sports went well into the early morning hours.

Was the cold and queasiness coincidence or something more sympathetic in nature?

That’s impossible to say. This much is certainly true: As Winnie commented early in our collaboration, Arnold and I enjoyed unusually strong chemistry and an uncommon connection that is instinctively felt and shared by his millions of adoring fans — and was still apparent last month when I visited with him at home.

The morning after our dinner at the club, I also visited with Doc Giffin and Arnold’s amazing staff at Arnold Palmer Enterprises and even saw his younger brother Jerry when he popped in to say hello.

Finally the boss showed up for work around 10 o’clock, trailed by a couple cheerful young therapists from the local hospital who were planning to do a stretching and exercise session at the Palmers’ home gym aimed at restoring Arnold’s ability to swing a golf club again.

As he signed books and the usual stack of photos and personal artifacts from fans that are always waiting for his immaculate signature every morning of his life, we chatted about various family matters and other things large and small. With Doc and his therapists we even watched a recently colorized CD release of the historic 1960 Masters where Arnold closed from two shots back to claim his second Green Jacket, setting off a national frenzy in the process.

At one point as we watched him teeing off on the 72nd hole of the tournament, needing a clutch birdie to secure the win, Arnold declared excited – “There, girls! There’s my golf swing!”

The therapy girls were standing directly behind the King of Golf. They were beaming, part of a new generation that never had the pleasure of experiencing the game’s most compelling star in his prime.

Arnold’s eyes was alive with pure joy. There were tears pooling in his eyes.

And even bigger tears pooling in mine.

Doc Giffin, a legend in his own right, just smiled from a few feet away.

A little while later, I did something I’d meant to do for many years.

I handed him my first hardbound copy of A Golfer’s Life and asked him to autograph it.

He accepted the book but gave me what I fondly call The Look – a cross between the scowl of a disapproving school master and a slightly constipated eagle, one way he loves to needle his friends.

I watched as he took his own sweet time writing something on the title page. He handed me back the book and said, “Don’t open this until you’re safely home.”

Facing a nine hour drive home to North Carolina, I somehow managed to wait until I reached my driveway just as the summer day was expiring, at which point I opened the book. He could have written it to 100 million people around the world, all of whom share the same kind of connection with the King of Everyman – and women.

“Dear Jim,” he simply wrote. “Thanks for all your wonderful works. You are the greatest friend I could have – Arnold”

That’s when my waterworks really let loose a gusher.

Over the days and week to come, we’ll all be reminded of Arnold Palmer’s extraordinary impact on golf and American life in general and the mammoth-hearted legacy he leaves behind:

How his 62 PGA Tours wins, 90 tournament victories worldwide and seven major championships defined the life of a man from the rural heartland of Western Pennsylvania who almost singly pioneered the concept of modern sports marketing, created a business model that turned into an empire stretching from golf tees to sweet tea, and grew to be golf’s most visible and charismatic force, its greatest philanthropist and most beloved ambassador.

During his half century reign, and largely because of him, in my view and that of many fellow historians, golf enjoyed the largest and longest sustained period of growth in history, a remarkable period that included the formal creation of no less than six professional tours, witnessed television’s incomparable impact, saw the rebirth of the Ryder Cup and revival of European golf, the rise of international stars and nothing less than a scientific revolution in the realms of instruction, equipment technology and golf course design – all of which Arnold played some kind of role.

How much of this cultural Renaissance was due to this kind, genuine, fun-loving and passionately competitive family man who grew up showing off for the ladies of Latrobe Country Club and earning nickels from them by knocking their tee shots safely over a creek on his papa’s golf course?

Impossible to fully quantify, I suppose. Though I would be inclined to say just about everything.

Golf is the most personal game of all, a solitary walk through gardens of nature. And Arnold Palmer was the most personal superstar in the history of any sport, a true blue son of small town America, the kid next door who grew up to become a living legend, a homegrown monarch for the Everyman in each of us, a King with a common touch.

His charm and hearty laugh and extraordinary undying love of the ancient game he was meant by Providence to elevate like nobody before him, will surely live on as long as people young and old tee up the ball and give chase to the game.

But he will be missed.

Oh, how Arnold Palmer will be missed by each and every one of us in a truly personal way.