By Debbie L Kasman
In 2013, the United States Golf Association launched a campaign for "hurry up" golf. They enlisted Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, a few other pro golfers and even Clint Eastwood for a series of public service announcements that encourage people to speed up their golf game. The Association said that rounds of golf are taking too long and slow play detracts from the golf experience. Five-hour rounds, they say, are "incompatible with modern life."
While I'm not a golfer, it seems to me that speeding up the game isn't the most brilliant of ideas. I understand that pace is important in golf and it's frustrating when the person ahead isn't ready to play their shot. But do we really need a national crusade to hurry up the game?
It doesn't take an expert to know that golf is a popular sport. There are many reasons for its popularity one of which is its many health benefits. Playing golf is good for your heart, it can improve your fitness and strength, and it can help you lose weight and body fat. Playing golf can make you feel good because you connect with other people during the game and it can reduce your stress levels (as long as you don't get too wrapped up in the score.) The five hours or so people spend on their favourite course is a nice way to wind down from a challenging week. There is fresh air to breathe, sunshine to enjoy, wind in your hair, and meditative moments while you focus your attention on your little white ball.
We are harried and stressed humans. There are never enough hours in the day to do all the things we should. We don't sleep enough, eat well enough, exercise enough, or spend enough quality time with our kids. We have significant demands from our jobs and huge pressure to make ends meet, raise our children and care for our aging parents. We need all the stress reduction, mental health breaks and meditative moments we can get. The last thing we need is to speed up our leisure times, too.
It's important we slow down and reconnect with ourselves every once in a while. If chasing a little white ball around a golf course helps us to reconnect with ourselves, we shouldn't speed up the game.
If anything, we should slow it down. It helps us break out of the rhythm of our fast-paced world and this helps us maintain our sanity.
We have to learn to control the rhythms in our lives and determine our own tempos. We can't rely on golf course owners, architects, national campaigns or even Clint Eastwood to do it for us. If we don't learn the skill of slowing down and savouring things in life, we won't survive in today's world.
The world keeps getting faster and faster but we don't have to.
Debbie L. Kasman is author of the book Lotus of the Heart: Reshaping the Human and Collective Soul.
Subscribe to Debbie's blog at http://www.debbielkasman.com and receive a free chapter from her book.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Debbie_L_Kasman
In 2013, the United States Golf Association launched a campaign for "hurry up" golf. They enlisted Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, a few other pro golfers and even Clint Eastwood for a series of public service announcements that encourage people to speed up their golf game. The Association said that rounds of golf are taking too long and slow play detracts from the golf experience. Five-hour rounds, they say, are "incompatible with modern life."
While I'm not a golfer, it seems to me that speeding up the game isn't the most brilliant of ideas. I understand that pace is important in golf and it's frustrating when the person ahead isn't ready to play their shot. But do we really need a national crusade to hurry up the game?
It doesn't take an expert to know that golf is a popular sport. There are many reasons for its popularity one of which is its many health benefits. Playing golf is good for your heart, it can improve your fitness and strength, and it can help you lose weight and body fat. Playing golf can make you feel good because you connect with other people during the game and it can reduce your stress levels (as long as you don't get too wrapped up in the score.) The five hours or so people spend on their favourite course is a nice way to wind down from a challenging week. There is fresh air to breathe, sunshine to enjoy, wind in your hair, and meditative moments while you focus your attention on your little white ball.
We are harried and stressed humans. There are never enough hours in the day to do all the things we should. We don't sleep enough, eat well enough, exercise enough, or spend enough quality time with our kids. We have significant demands from our jobs and huge pressure to make ends meet, raise our children and care for our aging parents. We need all the stress reduction, mental health breaks and meditative moments we can get. The last thing we need is to speed up our leisure times, too.
It's important we slow down and reconnect with ourselves every once in a while. If chasing a little white ball around a golf course helps us to reconnect with ourselves, we shouldn't speed up the game.
If anything, we should slow it down. It helps us break out of the rhythm of our fast-paced world and this helps us maintain our sanity.
We have to learn to control the rhythms in our lives and determine our own tempos. We can't rely on golf course owners, architects, national campaigns or even Clint Eastwood to do it for us. If we don't learn the skill of slowing down and savouring things in life, we won't survive in today's world.
The world keeps getting faster and faster but we don't have to.
Debbie L. Kasman is author of the book Lotus of the Heart: Reshaping the Human and Collective Soul.
Subscribe to Debbie's blog at http://www.debbielkasman.com and receive a free chapter from her book.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Debbie_L_Kasman
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