This year for Mother’s Day (happy belated to all those reading who engage in any mothering roles!), I thought it would be fun to play 9 with my mom. I have snippets of memories from my early childhood of riding the cart with her while she golfed with friends or in a casual women’s league. My mom is also the person that bought my husband and me our first entry-level club sets many moons ago. So how fun to get her out for a round so we could both embarrass ourselves hacking our way through the course. 

We drove out to the course after taking time for our brunch to settle and pulled up to see the “no riding carts” sign up. We exchanged nervous glances as she has bad knees and hips and a cart was the only way I convinced her to do this in the first place – well, a cart and pulling on the nostalgia strings. We walk inside the clubhouse to confirm the no carts sitch. Low and behold, the course was too wet and it was a pull cart only day. 

Much to our dismay, we decided we needed to bail. Aging. What a bummer. We let the course guy know we were bailing on our tee time and he tells us that my dear husband has called ahead and pre-paid for our round for Mother’s Day. What a gem, that guy. We take a rain check and head to the car to put the clubs back in and decide what’s next. We hot route and decide to stop at a little neighborhood shop and then head for a drink at a restaurant my mom hadn’t been to in 38 years. The last time she was at that restaurant was with my dad who has been deceased for 37 years. 

This may not seem like much of a blog about golf. But I saw the day as a reminder that golf is so much more than golf for so many of us. For some people, it’s how they make a living, certainly. For others, it’s a way to feel connected to family, past, and present. And yet others, it’s a way to build relationships with their own growing families. For me, it was a way to connect with my mom which rarely happens due to her living an hour away and I have a toddler and a busy job. It was a way for my husband to express gratitude for us both and make us feel appreciated and cared for. And in the end, even though we didn’t play, golf was a vehicle for my mom and me to connect over a drink and memories of my dad. Whatever golf is for you, I challenge you to take a couple of minutes each time you pull into the course this month to reflect on a special way that golf is more than pushing a ball around a grassy property for you.

Dr. Chelsi Day

Dr. Day is a licensed clinical psychologist. She is an Ohio native who completed her Bachelor's degrees in Psychology and Health and Sport Studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio while competing on the Varsity Swimming and Diving team as a diver. She then went on to earn a Master's degree in Sport and Exercise Psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology followed by a Master's degree and later a Doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University New England in Keene, NH.