thought exercise on Golf

The US Golfer George Archer had a relatively successful career on the PGA tour, winning won thirteen tournaments, including the 1969 Masters. As he drew closer to retiring from the sport, he wasn’t ex...

I love golf. If only it loved me in return. Alas, it is a one-sided romance. My golf swing is the stuff that keeps an instructor awake at night. One kindly compared it to an octopus falling from a tre...

George Bush Sr. (41) enjoyed the game of golf, even if he wasn’t necessarily very good at it. Following his presidency and his return to private life, he began to notice something: It’s amazing how ma...

Millions of golfers know the name of Harvey Penick. His first book, Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, became a surprising best-seller, selling more than 1 million copies in 1992, quickly earning the ti...

The American Golfer George Archer had a relatively successful career on the PGA tour, winning thirteen PGA tournaments, including the 1969 Masters. As he drew closer to retiring from the sport, he was...

In his book Thrive in Retirement, Eric Thurman shares the story of close friends preparing for their golden years: My husband was a lawyer who joked that after “the big case” came across his desk, h...

Editor’s Note: The following illustration came from one of my own sermons, as I was trying to help a congregation see itself not as a building, but the body of Christ. It has been adapted for TPW. No...

Christian spiritual discipline is a repeated bodily practice, done over and over again in dependence on the Holy Spirit and under the direction of Jesus and other wise teachers in his Way, to enable o...

The movie The Intern did not win any Academy Awards, which is hardly surprising. Punchy blockbuster comedies rarely receive Hollywood’s highest honors. But its message is nevertheless award wort...

We may find it hard to believe Jeremiah’s words that the heart is “deceitful above all things.” We would rather look outward and think, Yes, others may be quite foolish and misguided. But I have a ...

Is Easter a Lamont Butler kind of day or a Bubba Watson sort of day? On April 1, 2023, Lamont Butler buried the miracle buzzer-beater that advanced San Diego State to the NCAA national championship g...

He didn’t look omniscient. He looked intelligent, with his horn-rimmed glasses, gray-flannelled suit, and stack of documents. He was smart, prepared, and every bit the statistician his profession dema...

Recently I was running the vision of our church by my thera­pist, who is this Jesus-loving, ubersmart PhD. Our dream was to re-architect our communities around apprenticeship to Jesus. (That feels so ...

We can rightly ask, What does it mean to take responsibility for my life in response to the way God has made and called me? The response to this question is that we learn how to work with the hand tha...

Divorced couples in Albuquerque, New Mexico, can take advantage of a new business in town. The company is called Freedom Rings: Jewelry for the Divorced. Founded by jeweler and divorcee Lynn Peters, t...

It was a very hot Southern California afternoon in August 2007, but thank the Lord, I was preaching in a nicely air-conditioned church with about one thousand people in attendance. The pastor was gone...

Millions of golfers know the name of Harvey Penick. His first book, Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, became a surprising best-seller, selling more than 1 million copies in 1992, quickly earning the ti...

Imagine you’re a financial counselor. Today you have two appointments, first with an elderly woman and then a middle-aged man. The woman’s husband died six years ago. She says, “I have no more money. ...

The lesson that games can teach us is simple. Games aren’t appealing because they are fun, but because they are limited. Because they erect boundaries. Because we must accept their structures in order...

All games involve score keeping. The rules of scoring in any game tell the players which achievements count; what to do in order to be a winner. Monopoly players keep score with money; football player...

Charles William Eliot (1834–1926), was an educator and long-time president of Harvard College(1869–1909). During his many years at Harvard, Charles W. Eliot frequently expressed reservations about spo...

Bud Wilkinson was an American football player, coach, broadcaster, and politician. During one press conference, he was asked, "What contribution does professional sport make to the physical fitne...

The American Baseball player Moe Berg was more than just a great catcher. Berg had received graduate degrees from Princeton University and the Sorbonne in Paris, knew several languages and later serve...

Whether playing baseball or basketball, one of the first sports lessons kids are taught is the counterintuitive truth that focusing too much on aiming where you want for the ball to go is likely to ba...

Some time ago, when gambling was still illegal in the state of Massachusetts, four old friends were sitting in the back of a small New England general store, quietly playing poker, when the sheriff su...

What is the relationship between spiritual diciplines and grace? Does participation in the spiritual disciplines mean that we are not resting in God’s grace? Dallas Willard shares the analogy of a bas...

I’ve been going to professional baseball games and trying to get a souvenir baseball as far back as I can remember. A foul ball, a home run ball or even a batting practice ball—anything would do. I w...

George Gipp was the first All-American football player to play for Notre Dame. He played multiple positions including halfback, quarterback, and punter. His career was tragically cut short in 1920 whe...

Ira Gershwin (1896–1983), the celebrated American lyricist, was known for his collaborations with his brother George on numerous iconic songs and musicals. He was also an avid, though notoriously unlu...

In his excellent book, The Magnificent Story , James Bryan Smith shares this short little anecdote from the world of bumper stickers. While funny, it also brings up the commonplace idolatry that ...