Golf and Life: 3 Lessons I’ve Learned

• Posted on Grant
• in My Journey
• on November 1, 2013
• 2 Comments.

Yesterday, a flood of memories came rushing into my mind. At this time last year, I was delivering pizzas at night after my lessons, practice and tournaments.

I was running myself ragged under the assumption that I could “make” things happen. Our daughter Ellie was less than a month from being born and I was going to do everything to make sure we were in a stable financial position for her birth. Little did I know that I was in for some big life lessons!

Hound Ears CC, Boone, North Carolina: Courtesy S. Burns

The pizza place I was working for was way under staffed. I was the only driver last halloween night, and I had the “pleasure” of making over thirty deliveries. After the first five I fell behind and was late the rest of the night. There was no way I could keep up. I had some irate customers who thought I was just goofing off when really I was doing my best. The colder their pizza got, the madder they got. The madder they got, the more stressed I got.

Now, if I would have paused a moment and thought about three truths I have learned on the golf course, I could have been spared from a lot of pain.

#1. In tournament golf, I have learned that when you have a big event coming up, it’s better to  act as if it is not a big deal. Don’t try harder, don’t practice harder, just continue to do what you’re doing. This allows you to perform your best. My big life event was the upcoming birth of my daughter. I made the mistake of trying too hard. Taking the pizza job and working late into the nights ended up costing me more stress than it was worth.

All of that stress ended with me spending more in hospital bills than I made working overtime for three months. What a lesson, right?

#2. In golf, sometimes circumstances happen that are just out of your control. It’s more important how you react to those circumstances and move on instead of dwelling on them. Delivering pizza, I made the mistake of dwelling on how late I was running. The later I got, the more I worried about it.

And you know what? Because I was worrying, I made more wrong turns which set me back even further.

#3. In tournament golf, I do not let other golfer’s emotional states affect how I am feeling. In the past six years of tournament golf, I have seen it all when it comes to emotions on the golf course. I have learned that it is a waste of my energy to dwell on the disrespectful actions of an angry golfer.

While delivering pizza, I wasted my energy thinking about how I had been cussed out at the last stop. Letting their emotional instability (actually it was insanity) have an impact on me sapped my energy.

Hindsight definitely is 20/20. The fact that I was trying hard at that time in my life did not mean that I was performing my best.

Now-a-days, instead of running myself ragged, I am waiting on God to provide when big life events are coming. And you know what? He’s providing every time!

If golf has helped you discover a better way to live, please share an example in the comment section below. Thanks!

GB