"I HAVE SAND SKILLS" said the 3-year old

My mother lives minutes away from Chambers Bay, a jaw-droppingly spectacular golf course set on gently rolling hills that drop down straight over Puget Sound.  To merely call it picturesque would be to miss the point. It's a 24-7 meditation in action. Simply being there  is more like surfing than anything I've ever done. Now, especially when it's cold, it is an immersion in divine creation, a veritable baptism in beauty and the elements of earth, air, water and the fire of the setting sun.

I already love it and so does Ashton.

Long before we moved down the road from Chambers Bay, one of Ashton's favorite books was a hand-me-down from his sister called "My First Golf Book."  Discarded clubs, balls and tees  frequently littered our backyard in Culver City and he's gone through more drivers and putters in three years than I have in a lifetime. Still, it didn't occur to me how blessed we were to have come here until I brought Ashton to our local course for the first time last week.

It was his first opportunity to visit a real-live golf shop and he went bananas with glee. Brandon, the guy behind the counter, ended up lending him a perfectly sized 7-iron and some balls to for the short game range.

That was Sunday and we golfed until the sun went down.

Monday and Tuesday were Brandon's days off, but we returned today to discover that he had set aside "Ashton's club" in case we returned. Then he drove us down to the range in the shuttle and Ashton chipped away at a bag of balls and practiced his sand skills in the traps.

The sky turned yellow, then gold, then gaudy pink and we caught the last shuttle up the hill, nearly numb with cold but exhilarated with adventure.

Never - in a thousand or a million years - did I think this move would leave me standing on a world-class golf course over the Puget Sound considering I may have found my new hobby. But there you go. Life is full of surprises.