Lessons......................................

When I turned thirteen, he'd produced his .22 rifle and said, "I think you're ready to learn to use this."  His expression then had been very similar, and I still can't read it.  All I know is he believed that life had stages and they needed to be marked.
      Our infrequent moments of closeness were always enacted like this, over ways of doing.  With the rifle I had to demonstrate I had the maturity to handle what he stressed was a lethal weapon, before he ever put a bullet in the chamber.  Which meant thinking about consequences, being heedful, doing things properly.  It was that, not numerical age, which earned the right to use it.
      Golf was the same.  The teaching he gave us was about more than grip, stance, swing.  He was passing on the ethos and etiquette of the game, which expressed his own deepest values.  They were iron laws.  Never to talk or move when someone else is playing.  Attend the flag for your partners.  Don't hold people up.  Watch your partner's ball, mark where it's gone, help search for it.  Win without gloating; lose without sulking.  Don't show off - but feel inferior to no one.
      There was one lesson even more elemental that these.
      "Bobby Jones several times called penalties on himself for infringements that no one but himself had seen.  He nearly lost the US Open because of it.  And when he was congratulated for his honesty, you ken what he said?"
      My father glanced at me as we drover over the hill to St. Andrews that bright, breezy afternoon.  I think even then I was aware days like this wouldn't come that often.  I shook my head.
      "He said, 'You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.' "
-Andrew Greig,  Preferred Lies:  A Journey to the Heart of Scottish Golf

Ed. Note:  This is a wonderful book.  If there is a difficult-to-buy-for golfer on your Christmas list, you can earn significant style points by buying this book for them.  There is still time.