c. 1999 Religion News Service

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” _ Psalm 23

CLEVELAND _ Heard the one about the clergyman having a bad day on the golf course? His anger steadily increased as his shots found water instead of fairways, and on the last hole, he lost it after taking four putts. He swore, broke his putter and said,”I’ve got to give it up.””Give up golf?”asked the caddie.”No,”the man said,”give up the ministry.” Or the one, also recounted in”The Funny Side of Golf”by Jim Reed, about the minister who missed a short putt on the first hole and exclaimed,”Aw, shucks.”The caddie walked over to him with this advice:”Reverend, you’ll never break par swearing like that.” Cussin’ ministers and Sunday golfers praying over their putts rather than in their pews have long been a staple of religious humor. But what has been coming to the fore in recent years is a growing appreciation that as much as any other leisure activity, golf can offer a link to the divine.

As folks flock to the greens this summer, they might want to pause to consider _ along with that 8 on the 15th hole or the shot in the lake on the third _ the joy of spending four or five hours amid the trees and water and sand and green grass of God’s creation, said the Rev. John Loya, an avid golfer and spiritual director of St. Mary Seminary in Wickliffe.”It’s a wonderful opportunity to relax, to focus, to actually enjoy life,”Loya said.”Contemplation is taking a long, loving look at the real. The result in us is peace.” The peace that comes with getting away for a round of golf holds increasing appeal in a technologically driven society, where faxes, pagers and computers offer little respite from work or family-related stresses.

In”Play It as It Lies: Golf and the Spiritual Life,”one of several new books exploring the mystical qualities of the sport, the Rev. Mike Linder says,”Golf, like no other game, presents a player with countless opportunities to encounter mystery, to explore truths that are usually hidden beneath the busyness and complexities of modern life.” The first lesson: Life isn’t perfect, and no matter how hard you try to make it perfect, you will never succeed.”My first pastor said that every new priest should have to take up golf. It teaches them humility,”said the Rev. Norman Smith, pastor of Chapel of the Divine Word Catholic Church in Kirtland.

Concentrating on golf for 18 holes also provides a necessary break for a pastor involved in a major building project.”You think a lot, which means you don’t think a lot about what’s going on back in the parish,”Smith said during a recent round at St. Denis Golf Course in Chardon.”It’s like a retreat, especially within the context of nature.” His playing partner, the Rev. Troy Peverall of Cuyahoga Valley Community Church in Brecksville, said golf has provided some of the few times in the past five years when he has been able to slow down from the pace of church work, graduate school and raising four children.

In one recent round, he threw a ball down in anger after hitting a bad shot. Before he hit the second ball, he found himself listening to an inner voice telling him it was only pride that prevented him from accepting his first shot. Over the next half-hour, he filled his scorecard with spiritual reflections.”It was three or four holes of time with God,”he said.

Over the leisurely pace of a round of golf, other issues are given time to surface.”It reveals what’s going on inside of us. It comes out,”Smith said.

It’s no coincidence some of Smith’s and Peverall’s best ministry takes place between the tee and green. They call it”Church on the Course.” On a round with a church member who was a business executive, Peverall said, the man played terribly the first few holes.

By the third hole, he almost broke down, the minister recalled.”He was playing just like he was feeling about life,”Peverall said.

Another time, away from the church where members often feel they are expected to put up a good Christian front, another member of his congregation started crying on the golf course about the state of his marriage.

For Smith, golf _ like church _ is a communal activity. He never plays golf by himself. Part of the pleasure, he says, is the fellowship with others, and the memories of time shared on the course are treasured even after the deaths of golfing buddies.

The last time he spent with his father was playing golf together. His dad, who would suffer a fatal heart attack later that week, had taken time off to play a couple of rounds while Smith was on a break from the seminary.

On a recent weekday, Smith was playing with golf balls marked with the initials of a deceased friend, and he was using the driver of another deceased friend.”I got all these angels watching over me,”he said.

A couple of months ago, he took a grieving widower who lost a young wife to cancer out with him for a round of golf. He proceeded to hit him in the back with an errant shot.”Distracted him”from his worries for a moment, Smith said, grinning.

Of course, not everyone appreciates playing with a clergyman.

Peverall said when he is paired up with others, and it comes out he is a minister, one of his playing partners will say,”Why didn’t you tell me that? I’ve been cursing up a storm.””Then their golf game will get real bad after that,”he said.

Those on the inside will tell you that the divine connection doesn’t help.”I never pray on a golf course,”says Billy Graham.”Actually, the Lord answers my prayers everywhere except on the course.” In exploring the relation between religion and golf, the message clergy keep coming back to is learning to accept mystery in life, that people might never fully understand why bad things happen to good people, or why a golfer can get a birdie on one hole and a triple bogey on the next.”No one ever masters golf. And that’s like the spiritual life,”Loya said. Linder, a Catholic priest in Chattanooga, Tenn., calls it accepting the mystery. “Above all else,”he says,”the golfer has the opportunity to learn that life isn’t about winning at all, though occasional successes are sweet; it’s about discovering and then getting in sync with the rhythms of mystery.”DEA END BRIGGS