I married a very good golfer and as the adage goes – if you can’t beat them, join them. I didn’t want to be a golfing widow and so I figured it would be a good game to try.
Since I started playing golf I have always found it an interesting analogy for life. When you think you are improving and have finally mastered the art of driving that ball straight, you end up in the rough. When you think you have become a legendary putter you 3 putt every hole – even the best players experience this from time to time as we see winners from one week not making the cut the following week.
Golf seems to have a way of reminding us about humility and that arrogance leads us straight into the bunker. Golf is a game you never really master, you just keep practicing and as Gary Player is famously quoted as saying ‘ the harder I practice the luckier I get.’
I find that even the way the fairways are laid out can be paralleled to life’s experiences as there is always water, bunkers, trees, up slopes and down slopes and each and every course is different. Even if we play the same course week in and week out we never play the same game. So much depends on our mental state at the time and how we are feeling. I have noticed a key ingredient (if not the vital ingredient) to success in anything is to be relaxed. When we are relaxed we feel confident but then again when we feel confident we feel relaxed so it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation.
In any event, I got a par on the signature 7th hole at the world famous Pebble Beach this last week which for any golfer leaves you feeling on such a high and you finish your round thinking you are legendary golfer and all those bogies recede into insignificance as that one shot makes up for all the rest.
Life is no different – one good moment makes us forget the rest. So the moral of this blog is to keep practicing at life and notice how your luck keeps getting better…
Sorry if this was filled with golfing jargon for those who don’t play golf – see below for definitions.
Par – the ideal score for a hole
Birdie – one shot under par (an even more ideal score for a hole)
Bogie – one shot over par
