A July that began with so much promise quickly turned sour, as I have spent the bulk of it being sick. Testing proved it isn’t COVID or Cancer, but beyond that the doctor is clueless. I almost prefer COVID over this horrible bug.

Because of being sick, missing so much work the past two weeks, my golf season is basically over. If I ever get healthy, making golf part of my schedule will be too big a chore. I had to cancel my Grint side competition, but it would have fallen apart anyway. I’m not going to try any more of that this year and probably not down the road either.

Back when I worked at the newspaper, I saw so much potential within the local golf community, both in the playing schedule and in the media coverage of that schedule. Now, I see all the limitations put on a golf community that only golfs three months per year and still has to work their jobs and raise their kids. Golf becomes a low priority for most people.

In the past couple of summers, golf has become an increasingly low priority for local media. Not one local news outlet covered any of our state tournaments last year, which brings to mind that age-old question: if a tree fell in the forest and nobody was there to hear it, would it make a sound?

In most cases, champions need witnesses to make things real. Something that illustrated this for me recently was a movie I watched a couple of years ago based on the true life of some legendary English soccer star. It was a good movie, but I had never heard of the star soccer player. The scenes in the movie depicted a man who played for many years in front of packed stadiums. I realized if it were an American movie it would have been about a football player like Walter Payton. Because I don’t pay attention to English soccer, however, the otherwise extremely famous man made no impact on my life whatsoever. To the people in the forest, the tree makes a sound, but to those outside the forest, it doesn’t.

I feel myself slipping slowly out of the forest of Alaska golf. My time spent covering the local golf scene for both the newspaper and for my own blog was really fun, but it is time to let go of it for good. I tried to cling to some hope I could stay involved with some easy-to-schedule competitive events with the use of the Grint, but it doesn’t fit.

I disagreed with an article years ago that said most people see golf as a game that is too expensive, too hard and too time consuming. Now I agree with those people. Golf is hard to fit in to life. Don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not giving up golf by any means, but it will become a game reserved for vacations when one has the time to fully indulge in it and enjoy the game the way it should be enjoyed. To all my Alaskan golfing friends I’ve made, I will play with you again someday. Until then, keep swinging loudly for anyone who may be watching.