How is it so

As the day for golf is upon me, and having visited with my ole friend yesterday, seeing him, and knowing it is finished, our trips to the course, it saddens me, and the thought of being out there alone, brings to mind some thoughts of how this "game" has some parallels to life itself. For one thing this is one of the few places a person can call a penalty on himself. If for instance I hit the ball into a fairway water hazard, who is there to know that will cost a stroke, just hit another ball, and no one will know. Ah there is the rub, I will know, now is that not like life itself? Who knows what is in another persons heart? but we all know what is in our own, and do we just hit another or do we call a penalty on ourselves. Another thing is when I get to that tee box and tee up the ball for that hopefully long straight drive right down the center of the fairway. Sometimes the ball just does not obey the desire of my mind, it slices off to the right into the trees or hooks off to the left into some other trouble spot. A spot the keeps me from having a clear vision of the green, the goal. Life sure seems to follow that course from time to time, we have all the right intentions to live the straight and narrow, but we slice to the right and find ourselves in trouble, without a clear vision of the goal. The next is what to do now, here I am in the trees, or in a fairway sand trap, and no chance of getting to the green from this spot. Do I just take a chance and hit it in that direction hoping to get through all the trees, or do I choose another course or action and hit a safe shoot out to the center of the fairway where I then can once more see the green, the goal and aim again for the finish. The last contrast I think of is the final score, the whole of the game, the total strokes, the final number of times I have hit the ball, including the drive, the fairway woods or irons onto or close to the green, the chips onto the green and the number of putts to get it into the hole, including any of those undesired penalties. Is not the sum of life itself? The whole of the course of life, we hit some good ones and not so good ones, but one good hit does not make a good game, as well as one bad hit does either, it is the whole of the game, and is not life just like that, one good hit, one good deed doesn't make the whole life, nor does one bad mistake ruin the whole life, it is the sum of the whole life, and the goal itself is eternity, The total of all the hits, good one, including those not so good ones. And the only person who really knows the complete true score is the person himself, and of course the designer of the course, the one who gives the trophy to the winner, God.
Well, I tee off at high noon, and see just what this day has to offer.