"Getting The Fist Pump"

Bob Welch writes...

Recently, I watched my son play in a qualifying event for a PGA Nike golf tournament. At 19 and 5-foot-8, he was the youngest and smallest of 115 entrants, and one of the few amateurs. He had played hard and smart but hadn’t been able to sink a putt all day.

But he had handled himself with dignity and battled to the end of a course whose tees were set as far back as possible, and whose pins were tucked deep behind traps.

That night, after he had returned to college, I e-mailed him to tell him I was proud of him.
His return message said, “Thanks for the note. And thanks for coming today. My favorite part about playing well is when you are there to see me do things right. I loved hitting approach shots close and then getting the ‘fist-pump’ from you. I want so badly to play well for you—I want you to be able to see me putt like I know I can. But it fills me with joy to hear you say that you’re proud of me. As much as an 81 hurts, I’d take an ‘I’m proud of you’ over a 71 any day.”

—Bob Welch, Where Roots Grow Deep (Harvest House, 1999), quoted in Men of Integrity, Vol. 2, no. 4.
See: Proverbs 23:24; Proverbs 10:1; Proverbs 23:15