The Pursuit of Greatness
Having spent nearly 25+ years pursuing a career in golf, first as someone trying to play the game for a living, second coaching individuals to play the game and for some to the highest level competitively. I have learned that the game of golf is simple, complex, and hard. The greats of the game, and one thing for sure the greats of the game have learned how to endure pain better than most! I am not talking about physical pain, but the pain of learning.
Learning to play the game is simple, take a stick, whack the ball, chase it, hit it again and again until it disappears in a hole in the ground. Becoming a competitive golfer starts requiring deep effort. You may have passion for the game, but do you have the desire to be the best at it? To pursue to the extreme, to take your game to the highest level of competition. Playing the game recreationally requires some understanding and joy of learning, but the pursuit to play the game at the highest level requires discipline, tolerance for pain and discomfort, and the ability to endure the highs and lows of golf. The pursuit of mastery in a game that is constantly changing the challenges of each shot, from one shot to the next, never having the same shot twice.
If you have watched golf on tv, you’ve seen the best players in the world playing their best golf, and perhaps winning a “major” event, they make it look easy. Or so you think, anyone can do that. The task of hitting a shot may not be that hard but hitting the same shot under tournament conditions with your livelihood on the line, that is a different challenge. Golf at its simplest form is a game of solving challenges, one at a time. But because golf has an outcome, the score, it can be easy to focus on the final score or the round number, but if you focus on solving one challenge at a time or one shot at a time, you may find your scores falling and your outcome getting better as a result. Even the best golfers can underestimate the challenge of great golf, we call this the skill/ challenge ratio, golfers tend to overestimate their skill / abilities and underestimate the challenge at hand to play golf. Unfortunately, this is a common error for golfers, not understanding how difficult it is to be good at such a simple task. This can be said for just about in pursuit of greatness, in business or as an artist or another sport. Being great at something requires a lot of discipline to follow the simple rule of one, one thing at a time. Greatness requires endurance of pain, suffering, and adapting to situations with indifference to outcome. Michael Jordan, has a quote, “I have failed over and over again, I keep shooting, I keep pursuing the ball, I rely on the thousands of hours I have practiced, the hours I put into the gym, the hours I have conditioned my mind to push through the pain of losing or not succeeding at something, and this is why I succeed, this is why I am called on the make the final shot.” Greatness is not winning every game, or making every shot, it is about the pursuit of putting yourself in situations that allow you to call on the hours you have spent working on mastering your skills to succeed, to challenge yourself one shot at a time. The greatest businesspeople, athletes or artists this is where it begins to become fun, enjoyable, in the heart of failure is where champions are developed and nurtured, not at the top of the mountain. The greatest athletes or top performers often talk about in those rough moments is where they discovered the love for what they are doing. They embrace the hardship, the failure and the struggle as feedback. They endure greater pain than the average athlete, the average businessperson, the average performer. Great achievers use disappointment as fuel, they learn to accept feedback as part of the journey.
Golf is simple, to do it well requires tolerance of doing the ordinary, extraordinarily well, being able to adapt to new challenges, understanding that the next level is and will be challenging, it will be hard to push beyond your comfort level. Embrace and endure the simple and you will find your game improving faster and to a level that you may not have expected!
Enjoy your Journey!
