Golf Fore the Good

It is my sincere wish that Golf Fore the Good will never become one of those websites that says it is about golf and then provides nothing except a disjointed blog about nothing and even less about golf. But since this is my blog I am, very gingerly, going to walk a line just a bit off the course. Bear with me, it will all somehow tie together with golf, I promise.

October 22 marked the anniversary of a poem written forty years ago, in 1967, by my father. The poem has nothing to do with golf but it has everything to do with why I write Golf Fore the Good.

I was born to two of the most intelligent, loving and supportive people I know. They instilled in me many things, a few of which are a love of words, a passion for learning, and a sense of community involvement.

My parents don’t play golf. In all respects, they had little time, raising a brood of nine offspring, for any leisurely pastimes at all. Their days were filled with work, and children, and faith, and giving thanks for all with which we were blessed. The family was carefully nurtured along with a healthy balance of athletic activities and educational pursuits.

A healthy balance… one of the keys to our solid up-bringing. Obsessive-compulsive would not be the way to describe my parents. They are poster children for the phrase “everything in moderation.” I appreciate that they try very hard, and succeed fairly well, at making an effort to understand and even - dare I say? - support my adult-onset addiction to the game of golf.

Still, I am quite sure they’ll never completely understand my need to spend four or more hours performing a pastime that ends with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to show for it. Gardening – now there’s a worthwhile pastime, they might think. Spend four or five hours a day in the garden and you’ll have zucchinis the size of softball bats in no time. And do you realize how vastly you might improve your mind if you spent half a day, every day, just seated quietly reading instead of meandering about for hours on end on a golf course?

O.K., my parents were never really big on gardening (who had time with nine kids?) but we did eat a lot giant zucchinis for weeks at a time in the summer. And my father really did often read the encyclopedia just for fun. But for crying out loud, golf is like having a second job. Of course I don’t have time to read or grow my own food!

Back to the poem… I’m sure my father never thought too much about it when he penned that little ditty so long ago. He certainly didn’t realize that his single stanza would come to be a family standard that would be reinvented over and over. Yet today there are dozens and dozens of versions spawned from his original verse, all written by extended members of our family. At the heart of each and every one is the phrase “a bridge between.”

The poem is representative of a strong support system with our family. It stands for honor, for strength and understanding, and caring about others; the verses tell the stories behind the lives and mirrors all that I hope for through Golf Fore the Good.

I spent the anniversary of the penning of the very first Bridge Between walking the fairways of my home course on a splendid fall day. I was mentally blogging my way down the first few holes, facing a losing battle with a very large push cart. As soon as I managed to extricate myself from the trappings of THE CART I began to enjoy the day and the golf, and let my mind drift along as freely as the fall leaves flitting across the greens.

Thoughts of family and friends, and their fortunes and sorrows, mixed with sunshine and golf, stoking my inner blog… and that’s when I realized that Golf Fore the Good had found a deserving tagline at last.

My father has always had hope that A Bridge Between would someday be published. As a group, most of all the various adaptations and additions written throughout the subsequent four decades are included in a self-published bound book, with enough copies for family and a few close friends. And now, because I realized that the line I’ve been searching for was right in front of me all the time, a gift within the gift my father gave to my family, here is the original verse, its debut on the net:

A Bridge Between




A word, a laugh, a tear,
A way back when
A helping hand now and then
An attentive ear to youth’s hopes and fear
A father’s yes to a child’s request
A mother’s prayer about some minor scare,
A lighted candle on a birthday cake.
A joke, a smile, all these
Could make a bridge between.

1967 October 22 ~ Carlo A. Pola

Golf Fore the Good will be revamping our website over the coming season. I hope the forthcoming new logo and header along with the tagline will serve to illustrate our ideals and promote our mission. Look for it!