Bonding with My Dad and Brother

I did not care much about golf before I decided to come to United States, so my score was not good enough for competing. Although I had several achievements during my freshman year, I knew that my scores, usually ranging around 100, were average for my age and not remarkable. After this first season in Tallulah Falls School, I found a new determination for the sport. I practiced hard during the next summer and prepared for my sophomore year. The golf course had become my second home. When the sophomore season started, I was ready to improve my golf skills and also make some great friends. I started loving this sport with my fantastic teammates, who improved a lot-some from knowing nothing about golf to finishing eighteen holes in a match. Refusing to be slack at practices, our team worked hard to continue our path of improvement-even the harshest of weather would not stop our passionate practices. I remember once, right after the snow, we played the next day. Although the snow had melted by the

As I ran up and down the tee line, I saw my father slamming the ground with a golf club. I could not understand why he was always so angry when practicing. I stopped running and watched him closely, studying his body as he elegantly whipped the club through the air. Sweat was dripping from his nose, his shirt soaked completely through. I was six years old and in awe of this man. At home he was just dad, but on the golf course, he was someone else. He was an athlete. I watched him for hours that day, and I would watch him for years to come as he practiced, trying to find the perfect swing.

Sports was a part of my life growing up - whether it was attending games with my family to support the Huskies at Rentschler Field or Wolfpack hockey games at the Hartford Civic Center or even being part of a basketball team since before middle school, I have grown to love the atmosphere that sport brings. Whether it was assisting my Mom coach in our town’s T-Ball league or working with the disabled or even with the students at Wish Elementary School, through sports, I have been able to build a solid sense of a wider community. It is not just about the game itself but it is about what happens in-between and after. It is the indescribable bonds that form between

I must have seen too many innings during my first game with my father, because i could not stop talking about how good the game was. During the first practice with my own baseball team, I could vividly recall what happened in the previous day. After my father had informed me that he would take me to the baseball game. This was going to be a better opportunity for my case because I was going to learn more about baseball. Although I wasn't sure he was going to take me to the real game unlike other days when he used to stop me from

As a kid I loved going to the pool park with my dad, even if he was pretty overprotective. I was there with most of my dad's side of the family, which included a few cousins who were around the same age as me. My cousin Patrick is a little more than a year and a half older than me and was who I spent most of my time with when my dad was at work, which was for most of the day. My dad and his parents were really close and tight-knit, so naturally we went to a lot of places together. Patrick and I's friend Sergio was at the pool park too, so we were off doing our own thing while the adults were doing whatever it is adults do. Sergio had just gotten the newest version of Pro Evolution Soccer(PES), a soccer video game. He said we should sleep over his house that night to relax and play his new video game. We were all for it, but we knew that convincing my dad would be no easy task, a mission only accomplishable by the best and toughest rhetorical warriors. We came up with a plan to convince my dad and agreed that I would ask him when we were in the car on the way back. Finally, after a few more hours at the pool park, it was time to leave so we packed up and got in the car. My dad obviously had enjoyed relaxing that day, and was in a really happy mood. We knew that this was our time to set our rhetoric plan into action.

Growing up, my dad made sure that my brothers were involved in sports. Because he thought that football was too rough for them at a young age he signed them up for baseball. From then on out, we became a baseball family. Everything we did, all of our family friends were because of the sport. Even though, I did not play the sport, I still loved the game. It was the beginning of my seventh grade year when my dad informed me that it was mandatory that I participate in an extracurricular activity and because my dad was the authoritarian saying “no” to him was not a question. It was then that I decided to join a softball team.

According to the essay, these events should solely be built with the intention of having fun, learning and being with friends. However, demonstrative parents and coaches are imposing adult standards on children’s sports due to which winning and competition is in the spotlight. Participants are under the pressure to live

Freshman golf ended miserably, but I wasn’t even close to giving up. In Arkansas golf, high school isn’t a big deal like in Football and Basketball. It’s the tournaments held by the Arkansas State golf Association that are most respected. So my golfing year wasn’t really over, it had actually just begun. So I began to practice more, and focus solely on golf. It seemed the harder I practiced, the worse I got. I was trying too hard, and playing badly in tournaments. It was extremely heartbreaking. This was the only think that I had complete confidence in and I couldn’t

Once, a very long time ago, Vincent Van Gogh was said to have drunk yellow paint, hoping to gain happiness. Three years ago, I joined my school’s golf team for the same reason. I found myself isolated at school, realizing that I was pushing school work over my social life during my sophomore year. It was when I desperately struggled to surround myself with positivity that I found myself at the Santa Teresa Golf Course. The first few practices at a sport I had never touched was more upsetting than enjoyable. Unexpectedly, golf requires a mentality where the confidence to overcome obstacles is essential to successive progression in the sport. Being compared to my older sister at home, and then struggling to fit in at school, made self-doubt a

Thankfully, an older man who was warming up before his game saw me struggling. He came up to me and asked me if I wanted a few pointers. Slightly shocked, I accepted his offer. Over from the man’s golf cart, his partner yelled at him to hurry up and stop wasting time. However, the man signaled his partner to wait. He said to me, “Well first, your feet aren’t quite lined up with the ball.” I adjusted my feet to his liking. “Next, keep your left arm straight all the way throughout your swing. Lastly, just keep your eye on the ball. You’re looking up, and you aren’t hitting the ball in the right spot.” I lined up my feet, took my arms back, focused my eyes on the ball, and “POCK!” I looked up to see my ball soaring through the air and almost hitting the fence 100 yards away! I looked over at the kind gentleman, smiling. He smiled and raised his eyebrows. “Let’s see if you can do that again.” I did exactly what he told me to do, and sure enough, the ball soared. We practiced for

Youth sports are popular activities for American children and their parents. They give the kids an outlet for restless energy, and parents somewhere to send restless kids: outside. These activities are so popular, in fact, that according to Jay Atkinson in an article for the Boston Globe, “a total of about 45 million [American] kids” play at least one organized sport each year, mostly at the behest of their parents (“How Parents Are Ruining Youth Sports”). Those of us who are thirty and older may have memories of long, summer days spent at local parks, fields, pools, and courts where we enjoyed the freedoms of child’s play without much parental involvement. Youngsters today are not nearly as free to play as past generations were because parents

Participation in youth sports leagues helps teach these important lessons. Stephen D. Kenner who is the president of Little League International says in his essay Sports Teach Kids Valuable Lessons, that “But the lessons young players gain between the foul lines have guided some to become astronauts, emergency first responders, bestselling authors, military heroes, professional athletes, and even presidents of the United States.” Kids who participate in youth sports go on to do astonishing things later in life. Parents who want the best for their children later on should sign them up for youth sports. Jim Thompson, who is the founder of the not-for-profit organization known as the “Positive Coaching Alliance” says, “Competitive sports enhance life well after childhood.” This is another person that has seen the effect of youth sports on life beyond childhood. Youth sports are a vital part of the overall development as a

INTRODUCTION BACKGROUND: When a child actively participates in sports, they are able to learn life lessons in a fun and positive atmosphere.

Since the age of four, when I was barely old enough to swing a putter, I have loved the game of golf. My dad, passing his love of the game down to me, would take me out every Sunday to Woods Edge Golf Course in Edgewood; he taught me the ins and outs and the dos and don’ts of the sport. One of the earliest memories I have of these trips to Woods Edge is being a mere couple of inches from driving the cart into a pond while dad was teeing off; this would definitely be considered a don’t in the world of golf. I received my first set of clubs for Christmas when I was eight and a year later, a pass to Pin Oak. Boy was I thrilled. I began to golf by myself and learn my own lessons through my experiences on the course. But as I grew as a golfer on my own, my dad was still there tweaking my swing in the back yard and taking trips to Edgewood with me. My dad is a big reason why I have a passion for the game of golf.

Many people take up Golf thinking that it is easy, after all, how hard can it be to hit a little white ball with a stick? This thinking evaporates the first time they step onto a driving range and attempt to hit that little white ball. Golf is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. My experience with golf began in May of 2005 when friends came to stay with us; my wife informed me that I would have to take Roy, her friend’s husband Golfing. I had not been to a driving range (since I was in my teens) and I had never played golf on a course before. It was quite an experience; the weather was cold, rainy and nasty the three times we played while they where here, the game hooked me badly, even with the bad shots and the nasty weather.