I'm finding I like long titles. I may as well tell you what has happened over the past couple of weeks so you can decide if you would like to read on. I'm starting this letter to you on our last full day in St. Andrews, a city known for many things, most notably being the home of golf. I'm sitting in my hotel room overlooking the 18th green on the Old Course at St. Andrews. I grew up watching golf with my dad, and eventually, we took it up as a family. I fell immediately in love with the sport. I can still picture every hole at my home course, smell the freshly cut grass, and feel the cool breeze coming off the lake. I remember how the sun cast long shadows across the fairway as I arrived with my equally obsessed golfing buddy for the earliest tee time we could snag. I grew up watching names like Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Payne Stewart, and Fred Couples. I guess you can say that golf has been as much a part of my as anything.
Some people roll their eyes when you talk about sports, but I've spent most of my life playing them. They have shaped me as much as anything, teaching me how to operate in and steward my gifts and use those to improve the people around me. Even more, playing sports has taught me how to live side-by-side with people different from me. Throw a bunch of people from different backgrounds on a team with a good coach, and many of the things we argue about today dissipate when you spend months and sometimes years together. Proximity matters and there is no escaping it on a team. I have also learned the importance of discipline, hard work, patience, and the ability to persevere mentally in a single-player sport. Nothing has taught me that more than the game of golf.
My husband Chad and I got married almost seventeen years ago, and it has always been a dream that we would take up golf together. He tried it early on in our marriage, but it never took. It's safe to say I had laid down that dream, until he asked me this hypothetical question in 2019. "If you could go to any sporting event worldwide, which would you choose?" My answer was quick and easy. I had long dreamed of walking the sacred grounds of Augusta National during the Masters. As fate would have it, we were offered tickets that same year. That Sunday at the Masters ended with Tiger Woods slipping on the coveted green jacket once again.
Every bit of hype lives up to the actual experience at Augusta. They have built something there that can never be replicated. It was an experience we would never forget, and one I thought might draw Chad into wanting to play the game. That didn't become a reality until the pandemic shifted our lives a year, almost to the date later. With as much hard that came out of that time, it was a catalyst for my dream of playing golf as a family starting to become a reality. Life is mostly timing, I'm finding. You could say we have taken the fast track to experiencing much of what golf offers. We were afforded time during the pandemic to get in a round most evenings. At the time, our daughter Crew was three. We would load up in the cart and head out the door. Where else do you spend four uninterrupted hours outside with people you love? In this day and age, I can't name many.
Golf courses are essentially big parks; nothing more has proven that to me than being in Scotland. They passed a law there in 2003 called the Land Reform Act, dubbed "the right to roam." That means every inch of the country's land is public, including the golf courses. There you see people walking across fairways with their dogs or surfboards to get to the beach. On Sunday, the iconic Old Course at St. Andrews shuts down completely, becoming a dog park. People walking cart paths and crossing in front of your shot are commonplace. The right to roam. That sounds a lot like the freedom that unlocks a sense of wonder. My time here has reawakened my heart, allowing it to roam again into places we are told to leave behind with our childhood.
To the Scottish, golf is as much a part of life as food and water. There is a reverence for the game, something that understanding the history of the game can only afford you. People there think about differently about golf than we do in America, and that's something I'll take home with me. What is the same, though, is that this great game brings people of all ages together, providing a space to connect and experience the power of play.
Since returning home, I've spent some time reflecting on our golf story and found that it is a story of Aprils. It was April of 2019 when my dreams came true of setting foot onto the sacred grounds of Augusta National. In April 2020, we bought our first set of clubs, not knowing that we would purchase a piece of land on a golf course one year later in April. In April of 2022, my parents moved from Oregon to Tennessee, a full circle moment of sharing this great game together again. This April, as Chad turned 40, we made the pilgrimage of a lifetime to walk where the greatest ever to play the sport have walked since 1873. The Masters has always marked the beginning of Spring for me, and only now can I see that it must have planted something inside us that seems to renew itself each April alongside the first glimpse of those pink azaleas.
As much as I enjoy playing the sport, golf has also renewed my love for photography. I took my camera along on this trip, packing it for all 162 holes that we played. My good friend, Kyle, brought his too. We mentioned a few times how good it was to have each other. As the ones who document, we are often not afforded the opportunity to have images of ourselves. There's a story in each round that I will we can keep forever. Silly as it sounds, if generations after me stumble on my story, I want them to know how much I love this game.
In 2019 I began documenting our golf story, and I haven't stopped since. Over the past four years, many of my favorite memories have been out there, playing a game I love with people I love. I guess you can make anything what you want it to be. For us, golf is about family and connection. It's about moving our bodies and breathing fresh air. It's helped us move through seasons of grief and give us a space to breathe. My absolute favorite place to be as the sun begins to set is on holes 16, 17, and 18. At our home course, our girl loves to take off her shoes and dip her toes in the creek at 16, she loves to sprint up the long fairway on 17, and on 18, there is our sunset rock. She has her own set of traditions out there, and while she hasn't fallen in love with the game itself, she still loves playing in the great big park. I never had words for it until I went to Scotland. Golf has afforded us all the right to roam, reawakening my heart.
I'll leave you with photos from our trip because they tell the story better than words ever could.
Once again, heartfelt words and a glimpse into your soul. Always a pleasure to read your posts..you have such a gift! Photos are a bonus!
Beautiful, Julie. I love these photos. One of my dearest friends is in school at St. Andrews and her husband cares for the grass and grounds of one of the nearby courses (providentially, that was his focus and career before they even met!). This piece helps me feel closer to them!