What biGbOysgoLF is all about

First of all, thanks to those that have listed our blog on theirs. I do appreciate it and will work hard to produce excellent material. Secondly, I would like to reveal a bit about myself and Cyndy as I believe to know a bit about us is to know what biGbOysgoLF means. One way of thinking about biGbOysgoLF is when someone says "this is a big boy hole" while walking to the tee of a 489 yard par four and a two club wind is dead against you.

Two humanoids named Willard Leoto and Elizabeth Ann married about 50 years ago and had six little ones and I was the second and first boy. The totals were 4 girls and two boys. Willard was easily one of the top ten athletes to ever play high school sports in Oregon during his hey day and probably up until at least the eighties. Great football player, won state, talented basketball player and his primary sport, baseball. He played second base and hit like Pete Rose about 25 to 30 years prior to Pete. Trust me, he was a bonafide stallion...

Ann was super intelligent and a good all around athlete. Having six children in a time span of 8.5 years and a total hysterectomy at the approximate age of 31 proved to be just a bit too much for Mom. She had her first break from reality when I was 16 and the youngest was 10. Mom passed away last year around this time and its interesting to me how the frustration and anger she created in all of us children has melted away. I now remember her in a much more honest, loving and deeper way. The good news for me is that I know she knew all along how much we all loved her. Damn, she was a pistol.

I loved sports growing up. All sports that were really popular during that time held a keen interest for me. I would religiously read the box scores in the papers, watch the games on television and played organized and unorganized all the time. Well, not all the time. I did very much enjoy riding my bike all over town, even at the age of 8 or 9. Times have changed but I digress.

The honest fact about my success in sports throughout high school is that I was marginal at best. Not lacking in innate ability, passion or desire but instead suffering from what I would call performance anxiety. To speak plainly, I simply would get too nervous to perform and I was overall marginal . This is not to say I did not have my moments in the zone. I am simply stating a fact that I underachieved in athletics and while I am at it, academics throughout high school. I must say I did enjoy learning to drink beer, drive a car and cruise. I also learned about true team work, laying it all out on the line, what crunch time means, and the bitter taste of loss. Dad died during my senior season of basketball. I think I can safely say during my generation, dads were more than dads and in fact were god like to their sons. This may still be true, I just don't know. My father's death in a word, devastated me.

During the next 26 years I would somehow manage to enlist in the Air Force, be the recipient of two, dos, 2 article 15's and still make staff sergeant first try. I also, unbelievably to me, graduated magna cum laude from college, after receiving an honorable discharge from the Air Force. I have bowled a perfect game, averaged over 200 for a season, held a 7 handicap, passed the CPA exam and rode in and finished the Courage Classic. I have also been married and divorced twice and have suffered two serious clinical depression episodes, complete with hospitalization.

I have learned when I don't like myself, I do not make good choices. It is only in the past 3 or so years that I have learned to like myself and take a completely different path. Enter Cyndy, May 23, 2005. I had been "officially" divorced for less than a year when I spotted her ad on a internet dating site. I can honestly say they work, at least for me they did. I snapped off a "wink" and she winked back. Since that day, she has been an ever increasing part of my life and I am so grateful she winked me.

The great thing about Cyndy is that she has been a perfect woman in every way for me because she is so totally together. Plus, she genuinely likes me as I am and in effect lets me be me. What more could a guy ask for than a completely accepting, totally together woman who just happens to flip my switch at the mere sight of her?

Right about now you are probably thinking, so, what does this life history have to do with biGbOysgoLF and it's meaning? Your timing is perfect as I do not like to write about myself all that much and revealing well, that is enough for now.

First of all, biGbOysgoLF is for all of us. Each and every person has their own cross to bear in life.We all, at least in my opinion, play biGbOysgoLF each and every day with some facet of our lives. We each play that 489 yard par four into a two club wind.

biGbOysgoLF is about two things. First its about golf. I love the game and every single thing it does for me and to me. I have played a lot of sports at a reasonably high level and there is not another that begins to even get close to golf. Secondly, biGbOysgoLF is about overcoming challenges and in fact looking for them on the golf course and off. For far too long, I believe I dreaded challenges instead of embracing them in both my personal life and golf.

Since I have decided to embrace challenges on the golf course and in my personal life, things have been so much better in every single way. I quit the big corporate job that made me feel as though I was an indentured servant, we are completely out of debt sans the small mortgage, I am publishing on this blog which is a thrill and Cyndy tops it all off. Embracing challenges pays off in every single way and that is what biGbOysgoLF is about. Living life to the fullest on an individual basis both on and off the golf course.

Let's go play 18 from the tips sometime soon. Peace to you and GO RED SOX!