Changes

     The weather at this week's Deutsche Bank Tournament has been exceptional so far, the experience for volunteers excellent, but a feeling of melancholy has hit me hard. I've been watching golf on TV for more than half a century. I've seen Gene Sarazen and Sam Snead play. Arnold Palmer was my first golfing idol. This year's tournament seems to be a passing of the torch from an older generation who I have watched play for many years to new players who I don't have any real feeling for.
    Time to think about passing the torch myself.
    On the leaderboard only Ernie Els represents the older generation in the top ten. Lots of the young guns missed the cut, sure; but so did Steve Stricker and V. J. Singh. Phil Michelson, Davis Love III, and Padraig Harrington are hanging on with little chance to win. Tiger Woods isn't even here.
    Change is inevitable. When do you hang on and try to make a difference, and when do you hang it up and let time's river flow on without you? Few athletes make a graceful exit. There's no stage manager whispering the final lines to the tiring player. Few people make a graceful exit either, but having never risen so high there isn't so far to fall and the downward slope is a more gentle one. Inevitably, everything we hold dear, everything we've accomplished or tried to accomplish, washes away like "tears in rain."
   Written after a week of very little sleep  while watching Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid."