O.K. it\u2019s just an expression, and honestly, way over stated. Here is the deal. Golf Tournaments like the PGA Championship where we are now, and the Masters each April ,are interesting events in that you have flurries of hyper activity, usually early morning before the golfers tee off, or late afternoon when they are finished, mostly mornings. During a couple of hours you do 90% of the days work, the rest of the day you\u2019re, \u201con call\u201d. Golf events are great for catching up on reports and working on teaching programs. They are also great for catching up with old client friends that you seldom get to see. I had a nice long visit this morning with Dom Furore, a great golf shooter for Golf Digest who has become a dear friend over the years of seeing each other annually at the Masters. He is truly a great shooter and really, really nice guy. He has shot many of the images you\u2019ve seen of Tiger both on and off the course. For a long time he was the official family photographer. Another wonderful shooter that will drop by this week is Fred Vurich. Fred\u2019s a former Sports Illustrated photographer who now works for a number of major magazines, another incredible shooter with a strong of Golf covers to his credit, he also shoots a number of other sports as well. Fred is also a brother!<\/p>\n
The facility here at Johns Creek Country
\nClub is very nice, good food service,
\nand run by a first class team of PGA
\nfolks. The problem is it\u2019s golf. My idea
\nof dying and going to hell is to find
\nmyself required to watch baseball and
\ngolf for eternity. The last few holes of
\na tournament are usually exciting, but
\nI have little interest in much of the rest
\nof it. If they played the World Series
\nin my back yard, I doubt I would watch
\nit from my back porch. Don\u2019t get me
\nwrong, I think it is great to have sports
\ninterests, mine are college and pro
\nfootball and college basketball, but
\nI\u2019m not nearly the rabid sports fan
\nI was when I was younger. I worked
\nfor a short time as the official photo-
\ngrapher for the Washington Redskins
\nand seeing pro ball up close caused
\nme to be less of a fan than I was before.
\nI have a problem with us, (society),
\nmaking heroes out of athletes. I can
\nsee a policeman or fireman or a
\ngood teacher is a hero. But someone
\nthat can hit, shoot, or throw and catch
\na ball seems a little less important in the
\nbig picture of life. At least for me, Heroes should be people who\u2019s actions or life have made a big
\ndifference in the lives of others. A teacher that changes the outlook and hope for a child, a law enforcement person or fireman that places his life in jeopardy to save another, or a pastor that fervently preaches God\u2019s Word to show others the way to salvation, those are heroes to me. I love
\nfootball and I love to watch the great players and appreciate their athletic skills, but they are
\nnot risking their lives in service of society. The other thing is that professional athletes are very well compensated for their work. There is nothing wrong with making a good salary, but when you consider how much so many do for society and how little they are compensated it dulls the glamour of athletes to me. As I\u2019m writing this blog entry the TV is on in the corner of our little office and a parade of golfers are being interviewed in the interview room. I know it\u2019s part of the sports world, but I find it interesting that so many reports, photographers, video crews, and network personnel show up to cover these major sporting events. It is a reflection of our society that we need heroes, so we create them.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u2019m not bashing sports, or musicians, or movie stars, but as for me, if I\u2019m going to idolize someone, I think it will be a man who sacrificed His life so I might have mine, forgiven and living abundently…….<\/p>\n
Be blessed,<\/p>\n
the pilgrim<\/p>\n
*Photo Note: D7000, 12-24 and 10.5 lenses.
\n<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
O.K. it\u2019s just an expression, and honestly, way over stated. Here is the deal. Golf Tournaments like the PGA Championship where we are now, and the Masters each April ,are interesting events in that you have flurries of hyper activity, usually early morning before the golfers tee off, or late afternoon when they are finished, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2100"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2747,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100\/revisions\/2747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}