In today’s Monday Mulligan we will take a quick look at our family’s Christmas happenings yesterday and enjoy a special moment or 2. (image jennleforge.com)
The plan was to get up and Linda and I would go to church and S3 and his girlfriend, Yessie, who was visiting us would meet her ex-husband to pick up her son. Then around noon we would open presents, have guests join us for a Christmas meal, then S3 et al would drive to Laredo to spend time with her family and then turn right around and return to San Antonio.
Well, the ex was late and it threw the whole day off. Lunch was on time followed by a bit of game-playing, but no present opening, then S3 and Yessie and her son drove south, spent a few hours and got back to us around 9:45pm.
Now we could open our gifts. It was an interesting time as Linda played Santa and passed around the presents. Really, while there had been a couple of casual conversations of, “l’d kind of enjoy getting a——-”, mostly we all didn’t know what we might receive.
You might recall that several times I encouraged you to consider getting personalized and custom-numbered golf balls for your junior golfer. Linda and I did this for S3 and here’s how it went.
I knew we would put SG3 for his name, but I wasn’t sure about his number. A couple of months ago we very briefly touched on this subject and he said it would be cool to have his lowest score, 67, as the number on a custom ball. So there you go.
And the color selection for his name was a no-brainer. Probably when he was a junior in high school he was playing in a tournament at Plum Creek and stated that he had lost his blue sharpie. 1 of the guys in his group had a bunch of sharpies and gave S3 a hot pink 1. He loved the color and has marked every ball with hot pink since then. Imagine our excitement when Linda and I saw that hot pink was 1 of the personalization colors offered!
So we ordered a dozen Titleist Pro V1x’s with SG3 in hot pink and the number 67 in, of course, the standard Titleist red. Linda reminded me to turn the middle ball in each sleeve so it would show either his name or number through the viewing film when he opened the box. It worked like a charm. Linda handed S3 the wrapped box and he tried to guess it’s contents. As he tore the paper off, he saw the Titleist logo and now knew it was golf balls. But when he opened the box and saw his initials and number 67, he teared up and said, “Dad I remember talking about this but I forgot about it soon afterwards. And it’s even in hot pink!”
For the next few minutes, every time he looked at those golf balls he got teary-eyed. Something as simple as golf balls with a personal touch brought back all those years of memories, the highs and the lows, what was, what could have been and what might still be. As we were finishing up and talking about what a long, exhausting and wonderful day it had been, S3 said, “And look at me, I was crying about golf balls!”
Mom and Dad, these moments are not in any store! They are the precious times that are only available every once-in-a-while between parents and our beloved kids. A true Hallmark Moment!
We hope you had a Merry Christmas and we wish you a very Happy New Year! See you on #1 tee with your name on that golf ball… Sam
Parenting Junior Golfers... 