I came to golf late in life at the ripe old age of 36. I wasn’t a junior golfer, groomed by my parents to be the next big thing in the game. I spent my childhood playing every sport that my parents would allow. It didn’t much matter what it was as long as I was outdoors running, sweating and having a good time.
I loved soccer, baseball and like most Filipino kids, basketball was a huge part of my childhood. Golf was always there or thereabouts. My grandfather was a great golfer, the degree of his passion was unknown to me until much later in life. I spent summers at his house in Silay City in Negros Occidental doing what kids do. In the evenings, we’d sit by the television; he’d let me watch cartoons and other kiddie shows but at the appointed hour, he’d ask me to get up and change the channel (no remote control in those days) so he could watch Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf.
It was my introduction to the golf greats; Hogan, Snead, Palmer, Nicklaus, Player and many others. We saw a few Filipinos, too. I remember Ben Arda in a match with Frank Beard; I think it was the final match of the series. This was in the late ’60s.
The next day, my brother and I would play on the back porch, often wearing our grandfather’s dirty golf shoes, walking around in the steel spikes, trying not to fall flat on our faces. We tracked mud all over the floor and often got a scolding for our efforts, but those memories will stay with me forever.
The first time I picked up a golf club was at the birthday party of an elementary-school classmate. His dad was an avid golfer and arranged to have the party at the old driving range across from the Manila Domestic Airport. We all took turns hitting balls and had a great time. But I didn’t touch a club again for almost thirty years.
As I got older, I started a love affair with racket sports. I played tennis and squash competitively but if a racket or paddle and ball were involved, I was usually first in line to give it a try. The hand-eye coordination I developed was to stand me in good stead.
I developed a lot of fitness playing competitive squash and after a pretty severe ankle injury, I hung up my rackets and dove headfirst into endurance sports. I always loved to run. It was a chore for others but never for me. I loved it.
I later branched out into cycling after I made enough money to afford a proper road bike. I was insatiable. I found like-minded neighbors in the village and we went on many adventures that covered hundreds of kilometers a week.
But nothing lasts forever and that ankle injury I suffered playing squash came back to bite me. I was out on a training run and felt a sharp pain in my right ankle. I tried to alter my stride to mitigate the pain in the hopes that I could run my way through it, but the pain just got worse. I hobbled home and sought out a doctor.
The news was crushing. After reviewing my x-rays, the doctor informed me that I had developed osteoarthritis in my ankle. It’s a degenerative condition and although the painkillers he prescribed allowed me to walk without pain, it was apparent that my active athletic career had come to an end.
Sports had been my refuge and I was crushed to have to give it up. Playing sports was the time when I was truly happy and at ease with myself. I slipped into depression.
After gathering my wits, I sought out new activities in which I could immerse myself. It would have to be something that challenged and stimulated me and would allow me to pursue it, despite my disability. That’s when I turned to golf.
Ironically, I remember telling a friend that had asked me to golf years earlier that I would pursue the game when I could no longer run or jump. I should have chosen my words more carefully.
It didn’t matter. The moment that little white ball jumped off the clubface and arced into the air down the driving range, I was hooked.
I was hooked so bad; it was almost comical. In all my life, I had never picked up a sport that was this difficult and counterintuitive to learn. But that was exactly what I needed. If golf were easy, I probably would have given it up at some point. It was far from easy. It was so incredibly difficult and frustrating, but the successes were infinitely satisfying.
It was perfect. Putting in long hours at the range was easy. I loved the work. It was a period of self-discovery. I was a child again.
Arnold Palmer once said, “Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is, at the same time, rewarding and maddening—and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.”
No one has ever summed up the game so succinctly.
Twenty-five years on and I am even more enamored with the game than I ever was. I have gotten so much more out of the game than I ever imagined possible that first time I picked up a golf club. Golf has returned my love. It’s taught me self-control, patience and reinforced the lessons of honesty and integrity that my parents drilled into me as a child.
Golf has introduced me to great people of like mind, and enabled me to travel and experience the game in all its wonderful forms. You can golf almost anywhere with a little imagination—from your mom’s yard with a stick and a rock to the swankiest golf clubs on the planet, it’s golf and the game connects us all.
Golf not only gave me solace; it defines me much in the way that a child does a couple. I eagerly anticipate the days on the range and on the golf course. The buzz we feel when we walk off the golf course is electric, contagious. I live for the game; I live for golf.
Golf gives so much that it makes you want to give back. So, I endeavor to spread the gospel of golf; to help more people make their way in this, the greatest game ever played. To offer a way in, to hold their hands and lift them up when they stumble along their way. To celebrate their successes and commiserate with the failures. In golf, so much is like life.
This is what the game does. It fills you with passion and gratitude to the point that you absolutely need to share it with others. Golf is the last sport that you ever need. It’s the one that you can play almost from cradle to grave.
It is the greatest game ever played.