The Quiet Drive Home

People often assume the event ends when I load the last green into the trailer.

In a practical sense, they're right. The final scorecard gets tossed in the recycling, the last golf ball finds its way back into the basket, and the putters go neatly back on the rack, shortest to tallest. I latch the trailer doors, wave goodbye to whoever is still hanging around, climb into the truck, and point it toward home.

But I've come to realize that's not really where the day ends. It's where it begins to make sense.

There's something about driving home after an event that gives my mind permission to wander. Maybe it's because all of the logistics are behind me. I no longer have to worry about leveling greens, answering questions, finding enough parking for the trailer, or wondering whether everyone is having a good time. For the first time all day, there's nothing left to do except drive.

And think.

In "Can I help" I wrote about how common it is to have a young boy play obsessively, and at the end of the event ask if he can help put everything away. At a recent event there were four of them (a friend group) all clamoring to help clean up. They especially wanted to help load the trailer. As we finished up I shook all of their hands and thanked them for the help and said "see you next year". Their eyes lit up at the possibility of doing it again. As I drove home, I kept thinking about those four boys. Next year we'll all be a little older. They'll be a little bigger and able to help more. Someday they'll reach that age where helping clean up isn't nearly as interesting. Hopefully that won't be next year.

When I first started this business, I thought those drives were simply my chance to decompress after a long day. I would replay the setup in my mind, thinking about what went smoothly and what I could have done differently next time.

Somewhere along the way, though, I noticed I'd stopped thinking about the course.

Instead, I was thinking about the people.

I'd find myself smiling about the little girl who celebrated every putt as though she'd just won The Masters, or wondering why one quiet coworker suddenly became the center of attention after making an impossible bank shot. Sometimes I'd catch myself thinking about the child who asked if they could help me put everything away, or the group of strangers who somehow ended the evening looking like old friends.

Those moments have a funny way of riding home with me. The equipment goes back into the garage. The stories come into the house with me. That's where almost every essay on this blog begins. Not at my desk. Not in front of a keyboard. But somewhere between the event and home, when one small moment refuses to stay at the event.

Most of the time it's not the biggest moment of the event. It's something almost everyone else probably forgot before they got home. A laugh that spread farther than I expected. A child who played the same nine holes six times. A grandmother cheering louder for someone else's putt than her own. An event where nobody played for an hour until one person quietly picked up a club.

At first they're just memories. Then they become questions. Why did that happen? Why did everyone laugh at that? Why did one person change the entire mood of the event?

Those questions sit with me for days, sometimes weeks, until they slowly become the essays you're reading now. The more I replay these events in my mind, the more I realize I'm not just remembering what happened. I'm choosing what to notice.

I think my dad had an instinct for noticing the best parts of people without pretending the rest wasn't there. I think this because I never heard him say anything bad about someone, or express frustration, or refuse to engage with anyone in conversation. Some people would probably call that naïve, but I strive to be like him and assume the best in people, even when they give me a reason to think otherwise.

The older I get, the more I think he was onto something.

After an event, I could spend the drive home thinking about the customer who made me move the greens four times before they were satisfied, or the golf ball that disappeared into the landscaping, or the obstacle that will need some repairs before the next event.

Instead, I usually find myself remembering the people who quietly made the day better. The grandfather who never stopped encouraging his granddaughter, the child who wanted to help put the course away, or the strangers who left laughing together.

Maybe that's because those are the stories worth carrying home.

Or maybe, without realizing it, I'm beginning to see people a little more like my dad did.