Salute to Mr. Woods

I’m not a golfer. Hate the sport actually. Although that is presumptuous to say because I’ve never played, maybe I’d love it and become addicted. Tiger’s dad died yesterday. You know who Tiger is by his first name even if you’ve never followed golf (kind of like Michael). Earl Woods loved his son. He poured himself into his son’s development. Not as a golfer so much as a person. That maybe why I like Tiger, like Mike, and not Kobe. They are people of character, of substance. Both had fathers that put it into them.

An article I read said:

Woods was proud of saying he never left his son with a babysitter, but his goal was to eventually let Tiger run his own life.

"I had pulled back, one item at a time," Woods once told the AP. "Instead of going to several tournaments, it was a couple of tournaments, then one tournament. All of a sudden, he was running everything. I stood there and watched it happen. Because that was my job — to prepare him to leave."

God give all fathers such wisdom. We want to hold on to things. Keep them as they always were. We don’t re-relate to our children as they pass through the various developmental stages and we stifle them – hold them back. They resent it and we are frustrated. We have to start with the end in mind. Help them grow and then push them out of the nest.