About a month after putting up this blog in December 2007, I wrote a piece entitled “Shining the Light“. It described, in part, something that has become increasingly important to me over the past several years - finishing well. What does that mean? For starters, it entails a thoughtful and consistent effort to keep pushing forward in life despite one’s age. To increasingly focus one’s energies not on self-indulgence, but on people and/or activities that extend beyond oneself. This is in contrast to the stereotypical concept of retirement that was promoted in our country starting back in the mid-to-late 1950′s. Retirement was idealized as the phase of life where we would receive recompense for all our hard work. We would detach ourselves from the workforce and all its corresponding pressures, be “taken care of” by society, and allowed to blissfully “coast downhill” to the end of our lives. I know that’s a harsh generalization, but it’s my blog and for sake of discussion I should be allowed to engage in a bit of hyperbole. Still, as a lifelong golfer this vision of retirement was pretty appealing to me. That is, until some of my retired playing partners reminded me that you can’t play golf everyday…either you don’t have the money, or your body can’t stand up to the physical effort :-), or heaven forbid – you tire of golf serving as your only recreational outlet!
I just finished re-reading Mark Frost’s book – The Match. Speaking of hyperbole, the book is subtitled, “The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever”. While I would highly recommend it to anyone who plays golf even semi-seriously, it’s probably not a book anyone else would understand. It tells the story of an informal team match played in 1956 between two legends of professional golf (Ben Hogan & Byron Nelson) and the two top amateurs of the day (Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward). It has a Bay Area angle because both Venturi and Ward lived in San Francisco at the time and the match took place at a famous course on the Monterey Peninsula, where local golfers often go for day trips. The course was Cypress Point, considered by most to be the “Sistine Chapel” of golf – the ultimate expression of golf architect Alister MacKenzie’s work.
The 16th and 17th holes at Cypress Point
Nelson in his prime
At home in his den
I like good writing as much as anybody, so instead of me trying to paraphrase what Mark Frost wrote about Byron, I’d like to present it to you in his own words. Regarding Byron’s death, he wrote: “His turned out to be not just another obituary for a half-forgotten figure from a distant age long since passed. Because he’d touched so many lives for so many years, and remained so true to the basic principles by which he lived, Byron had remained timeless, standing outside of any particular memory or era. He’d stepped away from the glare of his sport’s spotlight at thirty-four, and contributed far more of a lasting value to the world around him [from his perspective]…in the six decades that followed than he had during his thirteen years between the ropes [playing professional golf].”
At his funeral, he was eulogized by one of the men whom he had mentored and played against in the famous 1956 match – Ken Venturi. Speaking of Byron, Venturi said: “Some people come into our lives and quietly go away. Others stay for a while and leave footprints in our hearts and we’re never the same because of it. He gave me strength in times of weakness. He gave courage in times of fear. And he gave love in times of doubt. You could always turn to Byron when you were in need, he was always there, and he gave you the best he had.
That’s the kind of finishing well that inspires me as I move closer and closer to the “winter” of my life, where being and influence take predominance over doing.
