I play golf. Yesterday afternoon was the first day really warm enough for golf, and I played my first round of the year.

Michigan has beautiful, plentiful golf courses. The problem? Winter. Good Lord, the winters here…. But each Spring, my friend and golfing-partner Mike and I would go reclaim our home course. For seven years, as best friends, we played the first round of the season together. And we couldn’t this year.

Golf is not some occasional thing for me – my Grandfather took the field next to the house (he farmed for a living) out of production to make a driving range for himself. Golf is a serious addiction in my family. Here, in Michigan (frozen tundra), I have learned to play in the cold; and in the summer, I get to work by 7:30 so I can be on the golf course by 4.

Mike couldn’t be with us to play the first round this year. We lost him to a severe stroke at the end of last summer. Mike brought me back to the sport, reminding me what a well-struck shot feels like singing out in the middle of the fairway. He brought me back to the powerful good that closing off the struggles of this life to simply play and enjoy being out of doors can do for the mind. I’ll never forget him for that. And when I made the shot pictured below? I laughed. I’d hit my 3-iron straight down the middle of #10 to about 90 yards from the green. The next shot I stuck right at the pin (even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then). And the little “tap-in” birdie pictured below made me think of what Mike would have said by way of congratulating a good shot: “How come you don’t do that on league night when it counts?!?”

I laughed out loud.

You weren’t playing with us Mike, but you were there. Thanks pal; you are much missed by the entire Brookshire golf-addict crowd.

For Mike: