Thankful For . . .

Another Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone.  If you're anything like me you ate too much turkey, fell asleep watching football, woke up for more turkey, and then fell asleep again watching football.  Holidays are always a great opportunity to spend time with family, friends, and those who are important to each of us.  Thanksgiving is also a great time to reflect on the good things we have in our lives and express our gratitude for all those things we are thankful for.

One of the things that I am most thankful for is having the opportunity to go every week to Ranken Jordan and teach the kids how to play golf.  As I have mentioned before in other posts, starting the junior golf program is without a doubt the best thing I have done thus far in my golf career.  Every week I see or hear something that reminds me of the significant positive impact the game of golf is having in the lives of these children.  While it is not necessary, it is always heartwarming to hear positive feedback from the kids and their families.

In the past week there have been two occasions where the impact of golf program has been shared with me.  The first was through a moving letter written by the mother of a patient who was recently discharged.  Her letter clearly expressed her thanks and gratitude to everyone at Ranken Jordan as they cared for her son and provided her with significant help and guidance as well.  Her son is a sports nut and the only sport he can safely play is golf.  Prior to coming to Ranken Jordan he had never touched a golf club.  Because of the few clinics he attended, he told me right before he went home that he wanted to keep playing, practice, and try out for his high school golf team.

And then we had our golf clinic this morning.  As has been happening recently, we had a large group of kids excited to get a golf club in their hands and start swinging.  While working with one young man he made the following comment to me:

"I don't know what I would have done here without golf.  I might have gone crazy!  Before I came to Ranken Jordan I didn't really like golf.  Now that I have learned how to play I love the game and can't wait to keep playing when I go home.  All of this is because of you."

While he worked on his putting we kept talking about a variety of topics, how much better his putting is getting, the Alabama-Auburn game, and how well Adam Scott is playing, among other things.  However I had to leave him for a few minutes and go help some of the other kids who were there this morning . . . partly to make sure they were working on the right things and having fun and partly to make sure he didn't see the tears of joy that I was struggling to hold back.  He almost made me want to say "War Eagle."