J.B. Holmes sank a three-foot bogey putt on the 18th hole to preserve a win in the Wells Fargo Championship at the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. But with all that was riding on that putt, he wasn’t really sweating it:
“Not really sweating, wanting to try not to get too excited, to calm yourself and make sure you hit a good putt.”
“I’ve missed a 3‑footer before, so it wasn’t like it wasn’t in my mind or anything, but I felt confident over it. It was an inside left putt, and I’ve been putting great all week so I felt I was comfortable with it.”
But not before he backed off the putt, took a look around and took a deep breath. What was that all about?
“Just enjoying the moment. So you don’t get that very often, so getting up and thanking God for letting me have the opportunity to do it, whether I made it or not and just enjoy being there.”
In one of his first post-round interviews before he went into the media center, he was asked what he had learned about himself on the day. And he acknowledged that it was a good feeling to be able to come all the way back from his by now famous list of maladies and injuries: two brain surgeries, a broken ankle and a tennis elbow surgery that took him out of the game for six months. And in the same breath, he added this:
“The Lord was with me all week. I leaned on him and definitely know that I can’t do it by myself. I tried that for a few years, so now I’m asking Him for help, and it worked out this week for me, and it was a lot of fun.”
That he would mention his belief in God and God’s hand in his life is not a new thing. Athletes — most famously, Tim Tibow — have been proclaiming their faith in these circumstances for some time now. But everybody just lets it blaze right on by because we don’t want to offend the small percentage of the population that are atheists.
But wouldn’t you just love to ask, “Tell us how you came to your faith, J.B.? You sound like you’ve been ‘born again.’ Was it any one thing that caused you to come to your faith or was it all those Sunday Schools that finally got to you?”
Wouldn’t that be interesting? Because with that information, we’re in a better position to evaluate just what he means by “lean on God.” We would know what he means by, “I definitely know that I can’t do it by myself.”
As a result of my nine-year Monday qualifying adventure, I became an unequivocal, spiritual person. It was pretty late in life to get there, but too many things happened to me in those nine years that I could only ascribe to God’s hand in my life. We always want evidence for such things. Well, I found my evidence. Over and over again. That’s ultimately what my forthcoming book, Generating Miracles: A Spiritual Adventure on the Champions Tour, is all about.
Within the first couple of months, my committed action to realize my goal led me to, A Course in Miracles, a spiritual book that came to me in the most improbable way. That was the book that introduced me to a loving and forgiving God, a God who actively participates in creating everyday miracles that help you along your path.
The significance of this is that you go from feeling like the Lone Ranger having to do it all yourself, to feeling like you are never alone and that you are being helped. Not always on your time line — I have spent eight years trying to get my book published — and not always where you initially aim — I wanted to be a Tour pro and now I’m a writer — but even those delays and changes in direction feel purposeful and guided.
So I am fairly certain that this is the kind of comfort that J.B. alluded to in his comments. And because his understanding of God is based on Christian theology, there is clearly surrender to God’s will in his comments, yet another level of comfort to rely on.
To punctuate these thoughts, the following email arrived as I was in the middle of drafting this post. It was from Abraham-Hicks Publications. They were founded by Esther and the late Jerry Hicks as a means to share Ester’s work in channeling the spirit voice, Abraham. And here is what Abraham had to say tonight:
“When that which is god — or that which is that which man wants to call “God” — is being understood by man, man has to translate it into the format he understands. But this Energy, this Source that man is giving the label of “God”, cannot be quantified in anything that man understands. And as man attempts to do it, the distortions are enormous.”
“—Abraham”
“Excerpted from the workshop: Los Angeles, CA on August 04, 2001”
So whether you begin with the Bible, or A Course in Miracles or the teachings of Abraham, or any other spiritual guidance that seeks to understand the meaning of God, you end up in the same place: comforted by the enormity of a powerful collaborator in your unfolding life.
J.B. knows what I mean.