CROSSFIRE
Life And The Games We
Play: Stick In It Till The
End!
By Herman Githinji
A
t the beginning of the year 2020,
we made plans as usual. If you
are the kind of a guy who writes
year goals, plans, and actions, life must
have looked bright on paper after a very
difficult 2019. As I pen this down we are
just in March and our plans have been
completely blown off the radar by the
Coronavirus. I started playing golf again. Now, that
is another game that changes you just
like the Corona. Those who complain
of mothers-in-law, now golf is your real
mother in law. It is so unpredictable and
sits on you properly, and there is nothing
you can do. The only thing, just like the
mother in law, is the awareness that I
chose this and have to deal with it.
It is very hard to understand how a guy in
China enjoying his delicacies eats a bat,
and the whole world is forced to wash
hands. That’s power. We are now hostages
not really understanding how we got
ourselves here. But one thing we know is
that the virus is changing the world order.
Something, actually many things, are
shifting. We will never ever be the same
again. I love playing golf alone so that I save
myself some embarrassments. I don’t like
guys watching me making a fool of myself
when hitting the ball like a misguided
bullet into the bush. The basic idea of golf
is to just hit that ball with a club from one
point to another within a marked fairway.
Fairways always look broad but wait until
you hit a ball, and you realize how narrow
they are.
I have discovered how hard it is to stay
in the house. Just last year, you stayed in
the house lounging and you were called
a couch potato. Today they call you a
responsible citizen. But golf is not all about frustrations,
in it you enjoy a good walk. This is
recommended especially when your knees
start to give. Despite it being a good
game for seniors, you nevertheless need
fairly good eyesight, especially in Western
Countries, where you don’t have caddies.
Anyways, to get myself out of the house,
In life the first mistake we make is not to
identify our course, limits, and milestones.
What course or fairway I am going to fol-
low? What are the limits to that fairway?
What will help me recognize when I am
off my fairway? When you identify and
mark your fairway, get yourself in it and
start your game.
04 MAL35/20 ISSUE
An old friend of mine in Australia called
Keith used to come with his elderly wife
for her to watch where the balls land as
he hits them. Unfortunately, the wife was
equally blind, and she could not really
pinpoint where the ball went. They argued
all the time on the golf course.
Life journey has a close similarity to
golf. First, you have to start somewhere
and finish somewhere. Second, you have
to play within the fairway all the time,
like good golfers do. If you do that, you
surely achieve your goals easily and faster.
But once in a while we all make mistakes
and veer off the fairway. It is what you do
when you are in the bush that determines
overall success, or failure, in golf as well
as in life.
Imagine a golfer who hits the ball to the
bush and instead of trying to get the ball
back into the fairway, he keeps hitting it
further away into the bush. That is what
most people do in real life. When they
make a mistake, and get off the fairway,
instead of gathering and correcting
themselves back into their plans, they
continue with their bad habits, repeating
the same mistakes, henceforth digging
themselves further into deeper problems.
While in the bush, people around you
suffer too. Emotionally or financially, they
suffer with you. At Sigona Golf Club,
caddies are fairly old guys, a good number
of them are over the 50s. When I went
to play there one day, they competed to
caddy for me because my new bag created
an impression to them that I was a good
golfer.
When we started playing and I started