A Jockey, a Hockey Coach, and a Shower Door That Exploded at 11:59pm

Sometimes the game finds you. Sometimes the glass breaks. Either way, you're awake now.

Author

Bob Regnerus
May 28, 2025

SPARK Insights by Coach Reg — Issue #0026

It’s 11:59pm on Thursday night in Pawleys Island.

Arlene and I are deep asleep — the kind of sleep that only happens when you’re rested, relaxed, and totally at peace.
Fresh air. Golf exhaustion. Blackout quiet.

Then BOOM — a sound like a shotgun, followed by the sharp scream of my wife bolting upright in bed.

Heart pounding, I jumped up expecting to confront a break-in — or worse.

But what I found stopped me cold:

The glass shower door in our rental unit had exploded. Completely. Nothing left but thousands of tiny, shimmering shards stretched across the bathroom tile and out into the bedroom.

No warning. No impact.
Just… gone.

I stood there, trying to process the physics of it.
Meanwhile, I’m barefoot, half-awake, sweeping glass off the bedroom floor — imagining the police arriving any minute from the sheer volume of the sound.

Turns out, the odds of this happening?
Roughly 1 in 7,500.

You don’t expect it.
You can’t plan for it.
But it happens.
And when it does, it forces you to wake up — fast.

And in that absurd, surreal moment… I realized:

“This is what integration looks like.”
Not the polished keynote. Not the coaching room.
But here — when no one’s watching, and nothing goes to plan.

The next morning, we were back on the course.
But that midnight moment stayed with me.

Because all week long, golf had been doing what it does best — revealing things.

Over the week, we found ourselves sharing fairways and swapping stories with:

  • A retired jockey, who talked about the courage to trust a thousand-pound animal at full speed with your life.

  • A helicopter pilot, who said, “You don’t fight the wind — you learn how to dance with it.”

  • A veteran with bionic hips, who grinned after every swing like he’d won the lottery just to be upright.

  • A hockey player, whose pre-shot routine looked suspiciously like lining up a slap shot.

  • And a hockey coach, who shared the same love of the game we played and mentoring the next generation of athletes and humans.

Other than the coach, none of us had anything in common on paper.
But on the course? Instant connection.

And it reminded me:

You can’t always plan the breakthroughs.
But if you’re awake, you can catch them.

Golf has a way of doing that.
It introduces you to strangers who carry pieces of your own story.

It teaches you to focus, to breathe, to surrender the outcome.

And sometimes, it wakes you up at 11:59pm with a blast of glass and adrenaline, just to see if the words you speak are the ones you live.

You don’t always get to choose when you wake up.
But you do get to choose how you respond.

Because life — like golf — is never just about the score.
It’s about who you meet, what you notice, and how you move forward when something unexpected shatters the silence.

SPARK Insights Reflection Prompt

Where in your life are you trying to script the outcome, when the real breakthrough might be hiding in the unexpected pairing… or the sudden shatter?

The glass broke without warning.
The pairings unfolded without planning.

And yet, each moment — from chaos to connection — felt like it was placed with precision.
Not to test me, but to invite me.
To slow down.
To pay attention.
To remember that life isn’t scripted — it’s scored by presence.

Sometimes the lesson comes wrapped in conversation on the back nine.
Sometimes it arrives as a midnight shatter.

Either way, it’s asking the same thing:

Are you awake to what’s here now?

Swing well,
Coach Reg

P.S.
If golf is your sanctuary, and you’re craving deeper conversation between the swings, SPARK Tee Time might be for you. I’ve made space this summer for a few aligned players who want more than just a scorecard.