TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2017

In 1981, Bill Rogers won the Open Championship at Royal St. George’s and went on to become the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year. Late in the 1980s, the rigors of the road brought Rogers back to his native Texas, where he settled in as a club professional in San Antonio. He still travels for golf’s sake, though less frequently and without the competitive pressure. We asked this genial ambassador of the game for some tips on playing a course for the first time.


What are some ways you can help us navigate our way around a course we’ve never played before?
“First of all, a lot of times having not seen a golf course actually works in your favor, the fact that you don’t know where the trouble is or you’re not in so much fear of what you do know—which is kind of an interesting dynamic about the game. Sometimes people play their best rounds on unfamiliar territory.
“There is so much information that you have the potential to get before you arrive at a golf course, so much so you could have played it in your mind, with all the internet access and different resources to get information about the golf course. That could or could not be a good thing.
“If I was really wanting to know about the golf course, I would seek out the golf course superintendent or the club professional and ask about any nuances of the golf course. Usually that pertains to elevation change in the golf course that isn’t exactly evident. Maybe the whole golf course drains toward the tenth green or something like that. Ultimately it can be helpful in reading putts or club selection.
“Another thing I would want to know, where the superintendent could be of help, is to indicate worrisome blind shots. That might be the most troublesome issue. You have a lot of that in Europe. People go over there and they don’t know how to deal with blind, and that can be really troublesome.”


Are there general things to keep in mind? Maybe I should be thinking that on most courses, the most severe trouble is beyond the green, that kind of thing?
“This would probably be the classic exercise in overthinking this. Golf really does boil down to one shot at a time—a tee shot to a particular point and then an approach shot and then hopefully being good around the greens. That’s usually going to be the simplicity of the deal. The more you make of it, the more anxiety you have about it being a new course, and all the things that go into playing a round of golf, I think you probably ought to be more careful to just relax, breathe out, and be aware of being the best you can on each one of your shots.”

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2017

 
Do you have some extra time to work on your putting? Here’s are two one-minute lessons from a couple of Links Players who have proven their expertise under the pressure of professional play, Loren Roberts and Justin Leonard.
 

 

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2017

Cris Stevens has long served as the chaplain of the LPGA Fellowship, traveling with the Tour and ministering to players, caddies, and staff. She is the executive director of Global Golf, through which she also reaches out to retired players, as well as college coaches and competitors. As hundreds of women (and also some men) have come forward in recent weeks about being harassed and assaulted–often under the heading of “Me, too”–we asked Cris to answer some questions for us about how people harmed in this way can find refuge in Jesus. She spoke with Links Daily Devotional editor Jeff Hopper.


Cris, as women come forward with stories of having been harassed or assaulted, you are not hearing these stories as though they are new. As a woman in ministry, you have been hearing women share these kinds of stories for a long time, am I right?
“Yes. The deeper you go in relationship, the more connected with each other’s heart you become. When I’m first building friendships, it’s usually focused around the periphery—the job, the career, the things that are visible in a person’s life. The more you grow in a relationship, the deeper you go into the heart. That’s where you discover or hear the wounds of the heart, because those are not things that people wear on their shoulder or on their belt or anything like that. Those take time to build the trust and the relationship to be to understand and to be able to hear and to be able to share.”


Those are certainly wounds. And people respond differently. When you read now women now saying, “Me too,” sometimes that comes with anger, sometimes the healing as has never happened. You’re committed to a work where the intention is to bring healing through Christ. How does that happen?
“Let me say first that it’s kind of like the original sin deal. Of course, Adam and Eve chose their own sin—it wasn’t like somebody came and involved them in their sin. But anytime there is an area of darkness, the tendency is to hide, to flee, to cover up. In the area of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, I think that is a tendency. It’s not just for women, but the stats show that one in five women will experience rape, and a large percentage of that is before they’re 25 years of age.
“The physical aspect is only the top of the iceberg in terms of how a person is affected in terms of sexual assault. So where does the Lord come in? He does definitely care about the external circumstances of our lives. We see that over and over in Scripture. The transformational part of the gospel is that it works from the inside out. The Holy Spirit comes in and he works from deep within to bring healing, wholeness, and freedom. So that’s where the gospel gets to the very depth of the pain that a person for years has hidden. Like God said to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” The second question—“Who told you that you were naked?”—was an intimate question. In counseling or providing pastoral care, the first place of starting is to be able to ask questions and listen.”


Where can a woman who is still in hiding go to get help?
“The first place that I would want to direct her is to the Lord, who is a safe refuge—he takes us under his wing as a hen takes her chicks. There is a safe place with God. Now a person who has been assaulted might say, “Well, how do I know that, because this has happened to me? It wasn’t safe then.” That’s a tough question, because bad things do happen to believing people. I can give a long theological answer to that and still not nail it or understand it. What I do know is that he enters into our pain. He himself has suffered. He himself knew betrayal by a person and people that he trusted. A large percentage of women who have been sexually assaulted, that I have had the opportunity to enter into their story, it has been by people that they trusted, whether it be a father, a brother, a coach, a pro that’s teaching them, somebody that they trusted. And Jesus also was betrayed. So he can weep with them and understand them. I think that’s the first place.
“A second place would be to be able to share your story with somebody that you trust. For some people that might be a therapy circle, or a counseling session, or T-group, or whatever. But it doesn’t have to be. It is beneficial to share with people who have walked in the same shoes as you, but the main thing is someone that is trustworthy, that loves you, and is willing to walk the long haul with you. That is where I would go. And I of course would hope that that helping person is a Christ-follower who can always point the harmed person to the place of healing, to the one who heals.
“It is a part of grieving, because there is something that a woman lost or was robbed of through that. That’s grief, so it’s beneficial to have people to walk beside you who allow whatever time it takes for that person to grieve fully and freely.”

 
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