Are you sure?
This bookmark will be removed from all folders and any saved notes will be permanently removed.
Breaking barriers in golf
As I look at the array of youthful talent on display at this month’s US Open women’s and men’s golf tournaments, I can’t help thinking of an astute observation made by Mary Baker Eddy: “While age is halting between two opinions or battling with false beliefs, youth makes easy and rapid strides towards Truth” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 236).
For eons it seems, the belief in golf was that players wouldn’t reach their peak until they were in their 30s. But the rules of age and success have radically changed. Tiger Woods began the tidal shift when he turned pro, in 1996 at age 20, and almost immediately became the world No. 1. Nowadays, teens and preteens are rocketing to the game’s zenith, fueled by qualities —many of them spiritual in nature—previously thought unattainable by youth: focus, meticulousness, maturity, and patience, to name a few. The latest example is Lucy Li, an 11-year-old who qualified for the Women’s Open at Pinehurst. Li’s idol? Rory McIlroy, the former World No. 1, who is all of 25 years old. McIlroy, winner of the 2011 men’s US Open, will be one of many preternatural youngsters trying to win a second US Open, beginning on June 12, also at Pinehurst.
