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It's wild how my father is suddenly addicted to golf & talks about it way more than the weather

Back in February I got a call from my dad, 65, and learned that he'd been playing golf this winter after years dealing with shoulder issues that didn't allow for swinging a club. A typical call before he got back into golf went something like this:

Dad (via Marco Island, Florida): I saw you guys are getting hammered with snow. How much you expecting?

Me: I think the weather guy's calling for 3-4 inches. Nothing too crazy. 

Dad: What else is going on?

Me: Not much since it's winter and we're snowed in. Kids are driving us crazy. 

Dad: Yeah, I get it. Well, I think we're about to go out on the boat for a little ride. 

Me: OK, I'll give you a call. 

Times sure have changed. He's back in Ohio for the summer and my uncle has dad jumping into a weekly outing circuit and last night I learned dad is joining a weekly VFW league for the first time in approximately a decade.

Now we've entered the stage of analyzing his golf game and how he's keeping it straight, not long and trying to reduce his double-bogeys and convert his GIR on Par 3s into birdies. It's bizarre how much time I'm spending on the phone with my father. He can go 45 minutes with very little effort just because he's back to an activity that we can both talk about and enjoy. Sure, yard work is something we have in common, but you can only talk about mowing on Thursdays so often.

After 2020, when my dad went through throat cancer, spent his summer loaded up on chemo, and turned into a 120-pound ghost, this is quite a welcome conversion.

• Have you been into a sporting goods store lately to outfit a kid for baseball? We went into Dick's last night to grab a helmet, cleats and look at bats for an 8-year-old. Guess where we're going tonight? That's right, a used sporting goods store for a bat. There have to be some ropes left in used aluminum baseball bats. Don't worry kid, your teammates won't remember the bat you used 15 years from now when you're all sitting around at the bar talking about the city baseball league.

• Isn't that cute: Jags fans banded together to get Trevor Lawrence a wedding gift. Wonder where they got that idea? That's right, I'm waiting patiently for my thank you card from the No. 1 pick in the 2021 draft. Suck it, Rovell.

• What could possibly go wrong here? Google appears ready to get back into the health records game. Apple already knows how many steps you're taking with the iPhone in your pocket. Did you know a Nest Hub feature tracks sleep and Google is saving that data?

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