O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens…When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor… (Psalm 8, ESV).
…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…. (Romans 3;23, ESV)
A recent headline reads, “Jordan Spieth’s slide summed up with mountain to climb to return to former glories.” The article continued, “Jordan Spieth has fallen away from golf’s elite stars, slumping outside the world’s top 40, and he faces a battle at the FedEx St. Jude Championship to keep his season alive.”
It’s no secret that the “Golden Child” is nowhere near the top of his game. Jordan missed seven cuts this year, finished in the top ten twice, and hasn’t won in two years. We need this “Houdini of the Links” back on the course, working his magic. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!
His roller-coaster-ride approach to golf is electrifying. By the time I’m finished watching him complete a round, I’m emotionally exhausted. The highs are mesmerizing, and the lows are downright demoralizing.
In the past, his ability to get “up and down” was pure wizardry. His mind-boggling skills to escape trouble made trick-shot artists look lackluster. However, recently, “The old great mare ain’t what she used to be.”
Ironically, his driving distance has improved from 289 yards in 2013 to 307 yards in 2024. Yet watching him stand over a three-foot putt is agonizing. Seeing him yank a wedge from a 120-out is nothing short of painful.
As is well known, Jordan has injured his wrist. If the reports are accurate, surgery is scheduled for the off-season. Hopefully, the surgery will be successful, and he will recover his earlier magical form.
As my Pro says, “Golf is a game of recoveries.” We might hit only nine greens in a single round and still shoot even par or better. If Hogan was right that golf is “a game of misses….,” then recovering from missed shots is essential to good play.
Once healthy, a re-commitment to the flat blade, short-game skills, and his iron play will likely see Jordan rise from the ashes. Like Jordan, we can improve our ability to recover from missed shots. In short, we can solve our scoring woes with dedicated efforts toward certain aspects of our short game.
Most of us remember the Mother Goose nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty: “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.” Alas!
Unlike our ability to recover from missed shots, Humpty Dumpty’s “great fall” was unrecoverable. Nothing from within his kingdom (horses or men) could restore his former glory. Similarly, no amount of effort from Jordan or us can solve the problem of our great fall from original righteousness.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t rescue Humpty Dumpty from his great fall. Neither can any herculean effort on our part bridge the gap between us and God caused by sin. To recover our original “glory” given us at creation, heaven would have to send a Savior. Heaven did just that!
As King David reflects on Genesis 1, he is reminded that mankind was originally “crowned with glory and honor.” He also knows we have all fallen and “can’t get back up.”
The “good news” is this: Christ Jesus, the perfect personification of God’s glory, came to restore our creational glory. We who have repented and placed our faith in him have merely tasted what scholars call the “eschatological glory” to come. Indeed, as Hebrews 2 states, “[Jesus] is bringing many sons to glory.”
Many at our clubs are running from God’s invitation to restored glory, now partly and entirely at his return. Let’s muster up the courage to tell them!
Prayer: Father! Open men’s hearts to your glory seen in the face of Christ!