View from the Sidelines

I shoot golf; I don't play golf.

As opposed to shooting for score with clubs, I shoot for pictures with a camera.

Thought that I should make this distinction clear because I think people actually believe that I know what I am talking about when it comes to golf and, the truth of the matter be fully told, I really don't.

Take your local golfing leagues around here and some of the crazy games they play for example.

Over time, I have learned the hard way (by making mistakes) about paying for par on certain holes, on what poker golf is and, most recently, about tie-breaking procedures that are used to determine weekly winners in Over the Hill league play.

And don't even mention all the different scramble formats that can be used; that could scramble my muddled mind even more.

It seems like every time I think I have it down and really know what I am talking about, some other error of my own making will rise up and slap me in the face.

Maybe I need to learn a little more about the game by actually playing it but, if I did, who would take the pictures?

Guess I will just have to stay in my picture-taking lane, my little uninformed-on-golf corner of the world then. Please bear with me though, I am capable of learning more as I go...

***

Maybe I am largely ignorant about golf, but I do know tennis.

Sunday's Wimbledon men's final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer was a classic, a titanic five-hour battle that will go down as one of the greatest tennis matches, and perhaps as one of the greatest single sporting events in history.

Just a few weeks past some heavy whining on these very pages about the lack of quality sports to watch, here I was glued to my TV, living and dying on every point as the No. 1 and 2 rated players in the world traded blows in one of the most enthralling matches I have ever witnessed.

By the time Djokovic's 7-6, 1-6, 7-6, 4-6, 13-12 win was finally cemented, I was about as wore out as the players.

Although I was rooting for Roger, no one can deny Novak's greatness as he won his 16th grand slam title.

Djokovic still has a ways to go to catch Federer though as he has 20 grand slams. The other part of men's tennis current power triangle, Rafael Nadal has won 18 majors. The next few years will be the final judge on which of these players will be deemed the greatest ever at his sport.

And speaking of other sports, I have to admit (thanks again Arlene!) that I also enjoyed following the US women's soccer team's run to the World Cup title a few weeks ago as well. If not on a play-by-play basis, I at least kept track of how they were doing from afar, and their 2-0 win over the Netherlands in the finals made all the watching worthwhile.

On the local sports scene, it has been a summer of camps, practice and play as high school athletes attempt to get better in their chosen specialties before

It's always today.

Never yesterday, or tomorrow – it is today. Always right here, right now, today.

We have all lived lives of yesterdays, giving way to todays, always looking ahead to tomorrows, each and every day