What is Acceleration?

I don’t know if you ever played golf? My first adventure into the manicured green fairways was at age twelve. We lived just off the course outside the town where I grew up. Until this time in my life, the golf course was the path between my house and the swimming pool. I enjoyed swimming and was fair enough to make the junior swim league and even win a few heats.
My dad and mom played golf but started later in their life – later to a twelve-year-old.

During the summer of my twelfth year, something clicked inside of me and I lost interest in swimming and my gaze became focused on the golf course. I started noticing the way the course was kept more like a garden, than a pasture that had been my bike path. I started watching the better golfers and wondering what it would be like to play. 

In the summer of 1967, my dad made my first club. Like most of us, it was one of his old clubs he cut down so I could swing it better. Late in the evenings my folks would take me out and let me play along.  By summer’s end, I had earned enough to pay half down on a used set of Arnold Palmer irons. One never forgets that first set. I washed and cleaned those clubs every day.

Along the eighth fairway,  ran an open stretch of rough where I was allowed to practice. Every morning before my paper route and mowing lawns I was out there swinging away at golf balls. The first two years went by fast and I gained huge ground with my game. As I look back at those years there was amazing acceleration. I was blessed to have some natural talent at the game and my parents saw this and joined in helping me. The local club pro would give me tips and the better players would let me play a few holes with them.

I have to tell this story, if just for the fun of it. In 1968, at age thirteen, it was decided I should go to a week-long golf camp. I arrived at the camp on a Sunday afternoon. It was located on a golf course in Indiana somewhere. As you came into the main lodge area there were driving nets where we could practice anytime we desired. As my parents went to register, I dropped my clubs by one of the nets and began hacking away. I was a tall, skinny kid. I could consume serious amounts of food and never gain weight. Those were the days, eh?

My golf stance looked like I was ready to hit one over the center field wall and I swung twice as hard. With my feet very wide apart I would leap into the ball creating a small gall force wind. Ball after ball I hit. There were only two of us practicing that first afternoon. I couldn’t imagine why everyone wouldn’t take this opportunity. I guess the head teacher thought the same because he was right there with us. Walking back and forth between us he watched, making small noises as I swung with all my might.

After twenty minutes of watching he stopped me, introduced himself, and asked my name. He said to me, “You love this game don’t you Byron?” I nodded in reply. “What do you have against the golf ball? What did it ever do to you?” I looked up at him a bit confused until this gentle but all-telling smile came on his face. He was kidding with me and at the same time, he was trying to get my attention. That Sunday afternoon was my first real golf lesson. Within thirty minutes he had me swinging the club like it was meant to be swung. Thirty minutes is all it took to make big changes in my game. That’s acceleration.

After thirty-five years of not playing tournaments, never having played professionally, I’m standing with Scott Thompson my caddy, and a few friends who followed me for the 2009 U.S. Open qualifier, and I’m in my own little world out there.

On the third hole, there is a pond snug up against the left side of the green and sand traps flanking the right. Hit this green or you’ve got problems. I pulled a seven iron on Scott’s suggestion and let it fly. It started at the pin before taking a slight right turn, landing on a hill five paces off the green between the two sand traps on the right, but hole high. Scott’s suggestion was good. 
From one perspective I’m only twenty-five feet from the hole - that's Okay. The other perspective is I have a downhill, bad lie, with a pond looking me in the face if I don’t hit the shot well - not so okay!

I decided the best approach would be to keep it simple. Hit it a few yards to the fringe and let it trickle onto the green where I can finish the hole in style. The ball was nestled down in the grass so making contact with the ball was key, and accelerating through the ball was not optional. I got my head around how much to swing the club and spent as little time thinking about the shot as possible. Sometimes thinking too much can ruin a good shot.

The ball landed just over the fringe, rolled quickly, striking the pin, looping around the cup, and coming to rest three inches from the hole. A tap in par! That’s the way to play the shot. 

As I walked off the green my thoughts went back to that first thirty-minute lesson forty-one years before. That was a moment of what I believe to be divine acceleration. The same can be said for the chip shot on this par three.  I chose the shot, pulled the club, prepared by rehearsing the chip, and then accelerated through it. I didn’t spend time contemplating the shot. I did it.

Acceleration in life is much like these two moments in my golf life. In pursuing the dreams of our hearts there must be action applied. God gives us purpose and then the strength to go after the dream, yet if we never apply preparation and action to the dream it will become an unfulfilled thought – nothing more.

The Father provides divine input, the way forward, the light unto our path and he is waiting for us to pick up the golf club of our dreams and wield it. When David spoke of God being a light unto our path he knew he was going somewhere and therefore needed the light. Why would we need a light on a path if we’re not going anywhere? It’s not enough to know you have a dream God is looking for individuals who will apply the action steps and the willingness to walk through the process with him. When you do this, divine acceleration occurs. 

Walking out of the process is not so much about the time required to fulfill a dream as it is about learning that the process is where we meet Father amid his divine acceleration. It’s our joining with him that most interests him, not the end result. 
I didn’t make the cut in the 2009 U. S. Senior Open qualifier but I know this is a process and I walked in peace that day. I was learning, gaining experience, and taking ground that will be mine as long as I keep after my dream. Knowing I had joined him in a part of my destiny by activating my portion of the dream, I knew the doorway of acceleration was open.

Byron