What Junior Golf Taught Me

Good morning. The air feels different now. The light is softer, and the mornings are cooler. We know the season has turned.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” Those words ring true each year. They remind us that the end of summer is not only a closing, but also an opening.

A fresh start does not always arrive with grand gestures. Sometimes it looks like a simple choice. Waking up earlier than before. Reaching out to a friend you haven’t spoken to in months. Sitting in silence. Small steps hold more weight than they appear to.

Fall has a way of teaching those that observe and listen. Leaves let go, and the trees remain. In that rhythm, we can learn to set down what no longer serves us. We can keep what is worth holding.

Welcome back. If you missed it, part one is here: What the Game Taught Me

Around the age of 14, I came down with an incurable illness. Many refer to it as The Golf Bug. Some (all?) of you have likely caught this disease as well.

I always played golf casually with my family growing up, but was more into other sports like Soccer, Tennis, Baseball etc. I liked the team aspect of those sports, but quickly realized my athletic potential was average at best.

The summer I turned 14, after a frustrating nine holes of poor play, I promised myself I would commit to getting better and one day play in college. The only way to get better and get the attention of college coaches was (and still is) to play well in junior tournaments locally and nationally.

After working with a swing coach and playing in my club events to get myself good enough to play at a city/state and national level, I jumped in head-first to the junior golf circuit. I played in as many events as I could for the next 3 summers, including local city amateur and junior tournaments, national tournaments (AJGA, etc), and everything in between.

As a 15-17 year old kid, I didn’t have perspective (or fully developed brain) the see the life lessons occur in real time. However, looking back after a decade plus I can put pen to paper and flush out exactly why playing junior golf is important for any young kid.

Pickled tongue at Myopia Hunt Club was not a novelty item, but a reflection of the food culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Clubs with strong ties to hunting and riding often leaned on hearty dishes that could be prepared in advance and served without much ceremony. Beef tongue was inexpensive, durable, and adaptable. At Myopia it was brined with salt, vinegar, and pickling spices, then simmered until tender and sliced thin. The texture was firm but delicate, and the flavor carried both the richness of beef and the sharpness of the brine.

Members often paired it with mustard or horseradish, which cut through the salt and fat. It was served cold, usually alongside bread and whiskey, and fit naturally into the clubhouse setting where meals were less about refinement and more about sustenance after a long ride or round. The dish lingers in memory not because of extravagance but because it captured a very particular moment in the evolution of American club dining, when the fare reflected practicality and the rhythms of rural life as much as it did social ritual.

Many players assume that if their ball plugs into the turf anywhere on the course, they are entitled to free relief. The actual rule is more specific. Relief without penalty for an embedded ball applies only when the ball is in the general area and embedded in turf cut to fairway height or lower. That means if your ball plugs into the rough, you cannot automatically lift and drop without penalty unless a local rule has been adopted to allow it.

Another subtle point: the ball must be embedded as a result of its own impact. If a ball rolls into an old pitch mark or depression, that is not considered embedded, and no relief is given.

This rule is often misunderstood because professionals on television typically play under the local rule granting relief from embedded lies everywhere in the general area. At many courses, though, players are still bound by the stricter language of the Rules of Golf.

At Royal North Devon, the oldest golf course in England founded in 1864, there is a distinctive local rule rooted in environmental care. The club banned plastic tees long before the idea became fashionable. The reason was simple and practical. Sheep and horses graze freely across the common land that doubles as the golf course, and members discovered that the animals were swallowing the broken pieces of plastic. To protect the land and the livestock, the committee required all members and visitors to use only wooden or biodegradable tees.

This rule is more than a quirk. It shows how deeply golf clubs can be tied to the land they occupy and how traditions sometimes evolve from necessity rather than ceremony. At Royal North Devon the rule still reminds players that golf is not played in isolation, and settles the plastic vs. wood tee debate for good.

My intention with BowtiedGolf is to grow it as the elite clubs do — through referrals.

If you’ve improved your look, laughed a little bit, or learned something because of this newsletter… why keep it to yourself?