This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Taylor Moore won his first PGA Golf event in Florida yesterday, but, with all due respect to him, his win is not what I will remember from the event.

Instead, this:

One of the players he beat – Adam Shenk – also was trying to win his first professional golf event.  At one point, one of the TV commentators said Schenk – it almost sounds like the bad golf word, “shank” right? – had been part of a threesome on the Korn Ferry Tour with these last names:

• Shenk (nearly “shank”)

• Yip

• Hack

If I had any of these last names and was trying to be a pro golfer, I would change it, at least when I played.

This reminded me of two things:

1. When I was serving as a starter at a Oregon Golf Association golf event for juniors, there was a player with the last name mentioned above – Shank.

I had to say his name out loud on the tee and it was all I could to do to pull it off.  Just imagine what this kid had to endure on a golf course!

• As I thought about the incredibly named threesome above, I also was reminded of the time two players on the PGA Tour were in the same group and they had two-letter last names – Bennett An and Kevin Na.  An and Na!

Okay enough of this, at least for today.