Well, here we are again, the end of summer, the competitive golf season is ending. A few of you may have a club championship to complete, or for a few juniors, it’s about National Championships. For many summers over, school has started, and the competitive golf season has ended. Boy, did the summer fly by! It will be fun watching the FedEx Championship this weekend. Congratulations to our adult and junior members, it has been an awesome ride this season! Hopefully, your golfing highlights have gotten you excited about working the “off” season harder so that you have more success next year! I know The GPC Team had personal best scores from many of our players, major breakthroughs for others in the form of tournament wins, college placements, PGA Korn Ferry Tour success, and along the way a few setbacks, or what we like to call learning moments and preparation for the next step.
As we make the home stretch of the fall, I just want to reiterate that making progress in the sport of competitive golf can be hard, extremely hard! As we say often, embrace your journey and enjoy the ride because you never know when it may come to an end. Our mission is to help each player understand that excellence comes from many years of learning, failing and trying again. Step by step, we relate the learning process to climbing up a flight of stairs where the first step is understanding the task. Second step is practicing with a purpose or focus. Third step is to transfer skills to the course. Final step is to transfer skills into competition, then doing it all over again at each level of competition or skill acquisition.
In his book, Steve Young, the Hall of Fame NFL Quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, talks about his journey to college and the NFL. A highly recruited high school athlete for baseball and football, he chooses college football at BYU, far from home. In his first year, he was the eighth string quarterback for the practice squad. He wanted to leave school and come home, but his coach encouraged him to stay, to work harder, telling him that he was good, but he had much to learn. Step by step he learned, enduring long hours of practice and working out. He wanted to prove that he could be a starting quarterback and by the time his junior year rolled around he was the starting quarterback for a National Championship contender. After BYU, Steve was drafted by the 49ers, only to sit behind another Hall of Fame quarterback, Joe Montana, for four years. Miserable, he wanted to quit, but he knew from his experience at BYU he still had a lot to learn about being a great quarterback in the NFL. In his induction speech into the NFL Hall of Fame, he said that if it weren’t for the years of hard work that no one saw, that no one had to push him to do, he would not be in the “Hall” today.
Embrace the challenges of learning and developing for what they are – challenges. Taking the next step requires failing, learning, understanding, patience, grit and deep practice. Do that long enough and you are sure to succeed!
Enjoy Your Journey!
