The Love of the Game

This is something I wrote sometime ago about the game of golf and its true meaning. Sometimes I have to read it just top bring myself back to why I do what I do for a living. Enjoy!!!! "The Love of the Game Just over a year ago at Chesley Oaks we lost one of our most beloved employees. Bobby Lepard was a hulk of a man with the heart of the sweetest of grand mothers. Bobby always carried a smile that automatically would befriend to him. When anything was ever asked of him he would always respond with unbridled enthusiasm and would give more of himself than asked. In the golf business, the days start before the sun comes up and end after the sun goes down. For the year that I worked with Bobby it seemed that I couldn’t get here before he arrived and I would always leave before he left. I would see something that needed to be done a before I could ask anyone he would have it done. Plainly put he just loved being around the golf course. His interest was not solely on just working for the golf course, Bobby had been bitten by the bug that so many before him had already encountered. He had a true love for the game. His enthusiasm for the game was like that of a child coming down the stairs on Christmas morning. Every new part of the game that was reveled to him he greeted as if it were a gold nugget. Ask anyone who frequents Chesley Oaks and they will offer you one hundred stories of Bobbys’ plain love and respect for the game of golf. My personal favorite story with Bobby is one I have mostly kept to myself. One day I was watching Bobby hit balls on the driving range and as most know golf can be a very humbling game. He was having no success at hitting the long perfect shot and was becoming quite frustrated. Shortly after we talk briefly about the short game and how a three foot putt counted the same as a 300 yard drive. He quietly went about working on his putting instead of the labored search for the long ball. A few days later he told me how he had beaten someone he earlier could not compete with just because his short game had gotten better. In his eyes was a twinkle I will never forget. Whether it was hitting a good shot, playing a few holes with anyone, learning the rules of the game or about the maintance of the course, or just finding a ball someone had lost he was always at home on the golf course. And that became so very clear after he passed away. A few weeks before Bobby became ill he spent many hours clearing and cleaning part of the golf course between our second and third holes. It was not necessary and it was not asked of him, he just seemed to be on a mission. With the job completed he seemed to be at peace with himself. Within days Bobby suffered a massive heart attack and stroke and was taken into Gods arms. We later found out that he had requested to be cremated and placed with a memorial on the spot that he had worked so hard to clear, and forever become a part of the course and game that he love so very much.