There's no I in the word team

Last week I found myself engaged in a discussion with a co-worker about team sports. I would have to be the first to admit that I would be the furthest from being an expert on this subject, as I don't think I have played a "team-related" activity since I was probably 7 or 8 years old. It's not that I have anything against team sports, just the opposite in fact. For whatever reason, I have always found myself much more attracted to activities where one must rely solely on his or herself for the success or failure of the outcome.

  I suppose this is probably a LARGE reason why there was never really any chance of me having any sort of serious career as a musician. Many years ago, I tried playing in a few bands, but there always seemed to be disagreements due to differing opinions and egos. And, if the selfish part of me was speaking, I just didn't like having to compromise on whatever the artistic side of me was trying to get out!

  The sport of Golf has been a large part of my life for much of my life, and I love it for everything that it is. Although you may play a competitive round against another person, golf is as much as anything YOU AGAINST YOURSELF. I once heard a famous golf caddy by the name of Lou Beaudine, AKA "Sweet Lou" who just happened to be on the bag when Johnny Miller performed his famous "miracle at Oakmont" in 1973 say something I thought was pretty profound. He explained that he didn't feel that an individual WON a golf tournament....just that all the other players mentally collapsed, and played their way out of winning....an interesting perspective on just how important the mental aspect of golf really is.

  Angling however is different, because it introduces a third variable...that of the fish. Even in competitive angling where one competes against other anglers, the competition is ultimately a staring contest between you and the fish, and who blinks first. If one wanted to get REALLY philosophical about it, you could say that angling may be the ultimate test against nature as a whole. Not only are you at odds with whatever combination of meteorological forces may be at play, but you're also pitting yourself against a foe that can think and choose whether to play your game or not. And unlike hunting, this foe doesn't walk on land where its behavior can be seen and observed and ultimately predicted. No...our prey lives in a world uninhabitable by humans, where most of the time it can't be physically observed, so at best we're making predictions about its behavior based on past success.

 As the famous basketball player Kobe Bryant once said 'There may not be an I in the word team, but there sure is an M-E in there" And, for ME, angling is the ultimate test, not just of oneself against the fish, but of oneself against nature as a whole.

Hope you all are having a great week!

Andy