Perspective from the 19^th Hole 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.

Frank Bruni, who writes for the New York Times and teaches at Duke University, has become one of my favorite columnists.

Why?

• Well, first he uses words very well, better than most.  In almost every column, he uses a new good word and I have no choice but to look up the definition.
• Second, he highlights the good words many other writers use, which indicates that he practices humility, knowing that he is not the only good media writer these days.
• Third, he is precise and concise in his analysis of politics, skewering both sides when they don’t find the smart middle.

But, then, too, he is dog lover like me.  He often writes about his sidekick, Regan, which he did this week.  Here is what he wrote:

“We’re not the only creatures that turn their faces toward the sun.  That enjoy the tingle of a warming epidermis.  That have a complicated, contradictory relationship with heat.

“When the mercury crests 70, my Regan will sometimes refuse to take a walk of more than 200 feet.  But then, perhaps half an hour later, she’ll agitate to go outside and she’ll choose a patch of the driveway or backyard for bathing in the bright light.

“Here she is recently [I am not including the photo here] minus the lawn chair, sunglasses and piña colada that a more doting, generous human caretaker clearly would have given her.  It’s a wonder she puts up with me.”

I have similar thoughts about our dog, Callaway. [Yes, I named my golf clubs after him.]

When we spend our winters in the California desert, he loves to go outside on our patio without a leash.  Then, he finds a great spot and lays down in the sun in the warm grass, loving the heat while feeling a bit of independence without a tether.

Bruni and I share two things:  A love of words and a love for dogs.  He is better at the first than I am, but, as for the second, I suspect we’re equal. 

So enjoy the sun and contemplate life.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole 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.

Anyone who knows me knows that I was never a fan of the LIV golf tour when it started a few years ago.  It gaf players billions of dollars tainted by the source of the money – the Saudi government’s erroneously named “Public Investment Fund.”

Then, it created what amounted to “exhibition golf.” 

So it is that the likely death of LIV doesn’t bother me at all.

Writing in Golf Magazine, Michael Bamberger also is not bothered as he wrote a solid piece under the headline I used for this blog.

In addition to problems with LIV directly, the headline contends that LIV has changed the PGA Tour but not for the better.  I also agree, though I also think it’s not too late for the PGA Tour to return, at least in part, to his roots.

Here are highlights from what Bamberger wrote:

• For a large swath of golf fans, the rise of LIV Golf has been unsettling. Even if the league does unwind here, and it may not, the damage already done will take years to fix. The billions of petro dollars that the Saudis pumped into the pro game via LIV, too good to be true or sustainable from the start, ultimately revealed a certain opportunism among some of our golfing heroes.  The broader pro game has taken a hit.
• Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia, Jon Rahm and others blithely broke off from tradition, the tradition that formed them.  And for what, $100 million here and $300 million there?  Who would have thought their loyalty could be bought at all?  Did they not see that LIV Golf, and it’s small-field, no-cut, hand-picked team-and-individual model, was way too far removed from traditional tournament golf, the golf on which they were raised?  Did they not see that the founding principle of LIV Golf was borrowed from The Dating Game?
• The players LIV left behind, the stars and near-stars of the PGA Tour, lost their way, too.  They have been diminished.  They allowed their fearless leaders — commissioner Jay Monahan, Tiger Woods, the Strategic Sports Group investors and, more recently, CEO Brian Rolapp — to dismiss the very thing that made the Tour so singularly attractive:  Guaranteed nothing.  Earn it, earn it, earn it.  Earn the right to play in 2026 based on what you did in 2025, that’s golf.  Earn the right to play on Saturday and Sunday based on what you did Thursday and Friday.
• LIV Golf played an indirect role in sunsetting the PGA Tour’s mark-your-calendar Hawaii stops.  Swaying palms in winter, swinging golfers underneath them, trying to get the new year off to a good start. The locals put on a show, and the rest of us could watch or not. What was there not to like?  But Hawaii not appears to be gone as a PGA Tour stopl
• American tournament golf, from the early Ben Hogan years nearly 100 years ago to the rise of young Jordan Spieth a fast decade ago, represented the purest and most civilized form of hunting, of capitalism, of sport.  A guy could, in Tour parlance, “stay out” until he played his way off the Tour.
• The beautiful game is a lovely and fitting phrase that has been attached to soccer for 60 or 70 years now.  The whole world plays fútbol, because all you need is a ball (any ball) and a field (any field).  That’s it.  The way the ball and the players move through that field is truly beautiful.  I only wish we, dues-paying members of the global tribe of golf enthusiasts, had come up with the phrase first.  Because golf is a beautiful game, too, simple in theory, confoundingly difficult in practice, played on all manner of fields.  Every true golf fan knows what I’m talking about here.
• Back in the day, pre-LIV, the money the Tour players made was the money the Tour players made, there in agate form for all of us to see. But it never made any particular impression on any of us, except as a convenient shorthand for who was playing best.  Yes, the fellas played for large sums of money but also, and much more significantly, handsome and often historic trophies.  These men played a game.  That’s all they did, and it was enough.
• Our golfing heroes played a difficult game well. They played the game we dreamed about playing.  That was and should be the glue of the fan-pro relationship. In that context, those LIV teams — the Crushers and the rest — were always going to be a tough sell.
• The answer to golf’s future lies in its past.  That is, professional golf, played the world over by the best players in the world, the gents playing the tours nearest to where they want to live, the whole golf world coming together a half-dozen times a year or so.

Good points all by Bamberger. 

It’s past time for LIV to die a quiet death.  Then, we can get back fully to golf as it should be played – by those who have to earn their way, every day.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole 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.

One of my business partners, Pat McCormick, often said this when he emphasized the skill of listening:

“Remember, God gave you two ears and one mouth, so listen twice as much as you talk.”

That was great advice in business when I was involved as a lobbyist on behalf of a variety of clients.  As I dealt with legislators at the State Capitol, I reminded myself every day to listen more than talk. 

So it was that I learned about legislators’ interests and perspectives, some of which could prompt them to support my firm’s clients’ priorities.  But I would have missed a lot if I had started talking first.

Listening also works great these days for me in retirement.

The emphasis on listening came to the fore for me last Sunday when the visiting pastor at the church we attend in La Quinta, California, WellSpring, delivered a message on listening.  It was and is memorable.

He used an acrostic to emphasize his points, but not just an acrostic for its own sake; an acrostic that embodied verses from the Bible to buttress the letters in the acrostic.

To plant this more firmly in my brain – often writing does that for me – here is a summary of the sermon. 

[In the case of the letters below, I have not listed the Bible verses that support them, if only for reasons of length, plus to avoid preaching a sermon.  Still, know that the letters aren’t just letters – they are buoyed by Scripture.]

The basic proposition is contained in James 1:19.  It delivers a practical directive to gain spiritual maturity by being “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.”

So, here is the acrostic.

• THE LETTER “L”:  Look at them

The point is to look others in the eye, not away, as you listen to what they have to say.

• THE LETTER “I”:  Involve your heart

The point is to listen with more than just your ears.  Focus with your heart.
 

• THE LETTER “S”:  Share the feeling of the moment

The point is to express sympathy, if not empathy, by feeling what the other person is saying as you listen.

• THE LETTER “T”:  Take time

Devote time to listening.  Don’t be in a hurry. 

• THE LETTER “E”:  Explore with questions

Don’t talk first.  Then, when you do talk, ask questions to verify your interest.

• THE LETTER “N”:  Never stop learning

And that includes learning from people who may disagree with you.

Good advice.  So, practice the art of listening.