When No One Yells Fore…

There are few things I find more enjoyable than a beautiful day out on the golf course. I don’t actually play golf, but I love it.

A few weeks ago, my friend Preston and I were doing just that, and we were having a grand time.

Preston is an insanely good golfer. He played for Furman and qualifies for many amateur level tours. I was his caddy for the day.

As we finished the front 9 and got to hole number 10, he hit an uncharacteristically wayward shot off to the right, landing in the rough. 

We walked down the fairway towards his errant tee shot. As we prodded through the rough in search of the ball, it happened. 

Out of nowhere, my head started throbbing. I mean throbbing!

It felt like someone wacked me over the head with an aluminum baseball bat. Or as if my head collided full-speed with an invisible brick wall.

It was a horrible pain, multiplied by the feeling of utter confusion.

“What the heck just hit me???”

I pulled off my hat and touched my head. Blood started spewing out like a water fountain.

Oh. This isn’t good.

The initial thought that came to my mind was a bird. Maybe a bird was flying full speed ahead and its beak punctured my scalp.

A gentlemen we were paired with said he thought it was a pinecone that had fallen from one of the tree tops above us.

But as the blood continued to stream down my face and onto my shirt, pants, and even shoes, it became clear that this was no silly bird or measly pinecone. 

I had no idea what was going on, and I was freaked. I dropped to the ground and began to scream for help. 

Preston threw me his golf towel and I plastered it to the top of my head, desperate to stop the bleeding.

I was in a total state of shock. It didn’t seem to register.

Wait, what?  Hold up………

What???  Really???  For real???

 Bruh…….  

C’mon, man.

I’m pretty sure it went something like that. 

After all, how do you go from a blissful afternoon to bleeding profusely all in a matter of seconds?

I used my free, non-bloody hand to call my dad and let him know that I was hit by something on the golf course and that 911 had been called. 

Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple dudes walking towards me. As they drew near, I realized they were golfers coming over from the hole next to us.  One dude had a particularly nervous expression on his face.

Then it clicked: I was hit by a golf ball. That bro’s golf ball, apparently.   

He seemed pretty upset about it and apologized. I tried my best to tell him that it wasn’t his fault — just a freak accident — but I wasn’t in the best state to get words out. 

Preston threw me another golf towel because by now my current one looked like it fell into a bucket of red kool-aid. 

Just across the fairway, dozens of high schoolers were out on the course taking prom pictures. I’m sure I made a splendid addition to the pristine backdrop. Beautiful green grass, blue skies, and a guy lying on the ground screaming whilst covered in blood. The ultimate photo bomb.

A golf cart soon arrived and I was wheeled up to the front entrance so the emergency responders could find me. Everyone we passed on the way stopped and stared. (They see me rollin’, they hatin’.)

A fire truck arrived first. For some reason, they drove right past me on into the parking lot.

“Where do you suppose he is?”  

“Hmm. Well there’s a kid lying in the grass holding a bloody towel to his head waving his hand around.”  

“Nah, no way that’s him.” 

A couple minutes later, paramedics arrived. The first paramedic told me that she was going to clean off my face so I didn’t pass out when I saw myself. “Great,” I thought.

One of the club’s golf instructors had also come to check on me. He had some particularly encouraging words.

Man, that’s crazy that happened to you. 30 people die from these incidents every year!!

“Uh, thanks… I think.”

As the paramedics finished cleaning off my face, they said I would be ok but needed stitches.  I had a one-inch gash in my scalp.

I hopped in Preston’s car and we were on our way to Emory Johns Creek hospital.    

I stumbled into the emergency room and told the folks that I was hit by a golf ball and needed stitches.

They put me in wheel chair and rolled me back into the emergency room. I will never forget the first thing the nurse said. 

“Did he yell fore?”

After a CT scan and 5 stitches, it was revealed that everything was fine and I went home.

Later that night, my roommates and I went to Jeni’s to celebrate not dying. How’s that for a day’s work? Surrounded by paramedics at 6pm. Out on the town eating salted peanut butter with chocolate fleeks at 9. Get on my level.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Stuff That Hits You

There’s several lessons you could draw from a bizarre story like this. For one thing, I truly am thankful to be alive. That ball could have easily hit me in the temple. Or in the eye. But remarkably, aside from 5 stitches and a massive goose egg, I was totally fine. It’s amazing how 2 inches of space can make an enormous difference.

But you know what I found most interesting about the whole thing? That last question… the one the nurse asked me when I walked in. That’s the question I’ve been pondering for a while now.

Did he yell fore?

In other words, “Did he give you a heads up? Did he warn you that a ball was sailing straight towards you?”

I wish he had. That would have been nice. Or maybe he did but I was too far away to hear it. I don’t know.

Here’s what I do know: I never saw it coming, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. 

Sound familiar?

While getting hit with a golf ball is not an everyday occurrence, there’s a common theme: What happens when something totally unexpected hits you out of the blue? What happens when nothing goes according to plan?

It may be a major, tragic type of life change like the loss of a loved one. Or a bleak diagnosis. Or, it may actually be positive change. But even good change can be hard to process when you don’t see it coming.

If you’re a recent grad, maybe you know exactly what I mean. Starting a new job won’t always go the way you think. Same with learning to live in a new city.  Same with building new community. We leave college with expectations of what life will be like, only to find out that we are often very wrong. 

As much as we think we know what lies ahead, the reality is that we get hit with things we never saw coming. 

So here’s three quick things I’ve been chewing on since my “golfing accident”… three helpful things to remember when stuff hits you and no one yells fore. 

1) Stuff that hits you can hurt… and it might not make sense.

Our broken world is never without pain and heartache. I’ve seen friends in their 20s go through all sorts of difficulties, trials, and heartbreak. I’ve witnessed friends lose their jobs out of the blue. I’ve seen relationships that seemed like sure-fire future marriages suddenly dissolve. I’ve even seen friends battle major health issues at ages far too young.

My friend Ben Rector said it best: “Here’s the truth. Life sucks sometimes.”  (When I say friend, I mean I once ran into him at Top Golf and got a selfie.)

If you grew up in the church like me (the name Caleb should give it away — total mid-2000s youth group name), you’ve probably heard the story of Job on several occasions. You know what’s particularly striking about the story of Job? God never gives him a full explanation or reason for his sufferings.

In the words of Tim Keller, “Job never saw why he suffered, but he saw God, and that was enough.”

2) Stuff that hits you reveals your need for community. 

I honestly don’t know what I would have done if Preston wasn’t there to help me out.

It’s a powerful reminder: You need friends who will drive you to the hospital, both literally and metaphorically. We were designed for community and cannot function properly without it. 

I love how Jon Acuff describes the importance of authentic community in your 20s:

Your 20s are lonelier than you expect. They’re glamorized in culture as the time of your life. The truth is, when you leave college, you leave the tightest, largest concentration of people your age. You’ll have to fight for community. Seek it out. Be deliberate. #GradAdvice

3) Stuff that hits you reminds you that, despite your best efforts, you’re never in control.

Our world is full of choices and options. We get to choose where we live, work, play, eat, vacation, and so on. This abundance of choice creates the dangerous illusion that we’re in total control of our lives. Everything is our choice.  Right?

Contrast that with someone living in a developing country where there are no choices. In their life, everything is a gift. Everything. The shirt on your back. The shoes on your feet. Your next meal. Your relationships. In a world where there are no choices, everything seems like a gift.

In a country like ours, you don’t fully feel the weight of the cliche phrase “every moment is a gift” until you’re fearing for your life. Until your choices have been stripped away. As I’ve said before on my blog, sometimes it takes losing your sense of control to realize that you never had it to begin with.

I wonder what would happen if we saw God’s sovereign grace the same way?  Not just as another option on the menu or a convenient addition to our lives. But as a life-giving, soul-satisfying gift. I think it would begin to change us. Especially in times when no ones yells fore.