Best Seat in the House: 18 Golden Lessons from a Father to His Son by Jack Nicklaus II. Thomas Nelson. 166 pages. 2021
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Jack Nicklaus, now 83 years old, is arguably the greatest golfer who has ever lived. Although Tiger Woods has nine more wins on the PGA tour, Nicklaus has three more major championships, which is generally how the greatest golfers are evaluated.
This book is written by Nicklaus’ oldest son Jack Nicklaus II, who writes that by watching the way his father has lived his life he has spent years in the greatest leadership-parenting-marriage classroom one could imagine. He tells us that he has had the best seat in the house to watch his father live out extraordinary lessons. He goes on to write that his father is simply the greatest man he has ever known, his role model and best friend. He writes that though the world knows him as a great golfer and golf course designer, his father made being a parent one of the most important parts of his life.
In this book, the author, a father of five, shares stories about his father and explains how the stories led to lessons about fatherhood. With each story and the lesson learned from it, he also includes some discussion about how he, as a father, carried that lesson forward to his own children.
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I enjoyed reading about Jack Nicklaus’ commitment to his family, including never spending more than two weeks on the road at a time. Nicklaus and his wife Barbara are involved in many charitable works, primarily through children’s hospitals.
This book is a quick and enjoyable read and will be enjoyed by fans of Jack Nicklaus as well as by sons who look up to their fathers. Although both father and son are believers, faith is touched on only briefly in the book. It is more demonstrated in how they live out their lives.
Here are some helpful quotes from the book:
- If I could have a simple message to share with any parent, it would be to embrace every moment. Your kids really do grow up so fast.
- Attending your children’s events—baseball games, dance recitals, musical performances, or golf tournaments—serves as a reminder to your kids that nothing is more important to you than they are.
- He always makes a point to remind me and so many other people who look to him for advice that no matter how old you are, you need to act like a champion—and that often comes through in the way you carry yourself.
- Whether you win or lose, always accept the final outcome with dignity and respect for your opponent.
- If we truly want to love each other as we love ourselves, we need to start by seeing the best in other people.
- Building and protecting our names by doing the right thing takes time, but our reputations can be lost quickly.
- Focus on what we can actually control instead of worrying over things we can’t.
- Dad made being a husband the most important part of life.
- Dad wants to be remembered as someone who gave more than he received. That’s the epitome of what it means to build a legacy.
- Our children are our true legacies, and we should spend as much time as possible with them.
- Many people can put on a good show in public. But your core, who you truly are, is defined by what happens when nobody is watching.
- In life or business, Dad will never negotiate away his integrity. He has always believed a good deal is not one-sided. It must be good for both parties to be successful.
- If you tell a person you are going to do something, you must do all that you said—plus some.
- Study, Savor and Share Scripture: Becoming What We Behold. My wife Tammy has published a book about HOW to study the Bible. The book is available on Amazon in both a Kindle and paperback edition. She writes “Maybe you have read the Bible but want to dig deeper and know God and know yourself better. Throughout the book I use the analogy of making a quilt to show how the Bible is telling one big story about what God is doing in the world through Christ. Quilting takes much patience and precision, just like studying the Bible, but the end result is well worth it.”
- My Goodreads Book Reviews. You can read more than 470 of my book reviews posted on Goodreads.
We are reading through Truths We Confess: A Systematic Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith by R.C. Sproul. From the Ligonier description:
“
In Truths We Confess, Dr. Sproul introduces readers to this remarkable confession, explaining its insights and applying them to modern life. In his signature easy-to-understand style and with his conviction that everyone’s a theologian, he provides valuable commentary that will serve churches and individual Christians as they strive to better understand the eternal truths of Scripture. As he walks through the confession line by line, Dr. Sproul shows how the doctrines of the Bible—from creation to covenant, sin to salvation—fit together to the glory of God. This accessible volume is designed to help you deepen your knowledge of God’s Word and answer the question, What do you believe?”
This week we look at WCF 6 Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment. Here are a few helpful quotes from the chapter:
- Doing what you want to do rather than what God requires you to do is sin.
- Today, the Bible’s authority as the written Word of God has come under such severe attack that the church is tempted not to submit to it.
- The Bible calls us sinners, not merely because we commit sins, but because we are by nature sinful—inclined or disposed toward sin.
- In our fallen nature, we have a desire for sin. At the moment of sinning, we want to sin more than we want to please Christ and obey God. Otherwise, we would not do it.
- God looks at the heart. He delights in obedience from a heart that genuinely loves Him.
- Reformed theology teaches that the fall is so serious and profound that, if left to ourselves, to our own inclinations and natural dispositions, we would never come to Christ.
- Only the Holy Spirit can change our natural disposition and inclination and create in our souls a genuine love for God. Unless He moves to change us, the only good we will ever do is on the horizontal plane, and that will not satisfy the law of God.
- If God says He will forgive us in certain circumstances and on certain conditions, then we can rely on the objective truthfulness of that declaration and know that we are forgiven.
- God saves us, in Christ, from His own judgment and wrath.
- The truth is that if we do not believe in God’s wrath, we cannot be considered Christians. It is that simple. Divine wrath is integral to the classic biblical concept of faith.
