Lessons Learned

When I’m tired, as I have been for the past week, I can barely think much less write down coherent thoughts. My tiredness is due to a variety of factors including a storm-phobic dog, erratic sleep patterns of my child, erratic sleep patterns of my own, and no break in the day to rest. So bear with me on this post.

Golf has been a topic that has been brought up repeatedly and unexpectedly in the last 24 hours. For this reason, I’ve decided to sit up and take notice of what I have learned from my prior experience in this sport.

Note – I have not taken up a golf club to play in over ten years (probably more, but who’s counting?) I have considered using them as weapons when imagined intruders were not deterred by two old, sweet and harmless dogs, but that’s another story.

I was given my first set of golf clubs when I was nine years old. My father is a golfer and fully expected his oldest child to follow in his footsteps. However, I found roller skates and a ten-speed bicycle to be more appealing at this tender age and barely touched the clubs. When I was in high school, a few of my friends and I decided to join the girls’ golf team. I still don’t remember why – I think I wanted to impress my dad with my latent golf skills – but we met the requirements of breathing, walking unassisted, and borrowing a set of clubs, so we joined. And we had a lot of fun. I’m sure the sport of golf was not intended to be as fun as we made it, especially when I noticed the distressed looks of the team golf coach and my dad when he came out to watch one of our practices. I laughed with the girls while hooking tee shots, whiffing the ball, sinking a few in the mosquito infested pond, displacing buckets of sand, and missing putts on that small 9-hole course. I would not become the great, undiscovered golfer that I imagined myself to be, but I was learning some valuable lessons about myself in the process.

1. When your head is not in it, the rest of your game will suffer.

2. Without the proper tools and training, you will be fighting an uphill battle to compensate for what you’re lacking.

3. Be realistic. Can you physically accomplish what you’ve set out to do? If not, get help or take a few extra shots to meet your goal.

4. Don’t take the game (or life) too seriously.

5. Laugh about your mistakes. Beating yourself up requires too much energy.

6. If lost in the woods, you have only a few options available: keep searching or drop a new ball and continue playing.

7. Watch and learn from others more experienced than you.

8. Playing with a few treasured friends makes the game more enjoyable.

9. Stop expecting to make the perfect shot. If you minimize your expectations, you will minimize your frustrations.

10. The world will not stop spinning if you lose the game. Don’t get so focused on your goal that you forget to look around and enjoy each moment. Congratulate winners with sincerity and be grateful that you’ve had the opportunity to play.