As a PGA Professional, I’ve spent 100′s of hours on the range giving golf lessons. However, it’s the golf lessons I’ve received over the years that I enjoy passing on to my students…I hope you enjoy and find value in 5 of my favorites below:
1) If you notice a guy at the end of the range hitting one shank after another, but he keeps looking over his shoulder and appears to have a grin on his face, and you wonder how anyone could be that happy about hitting the ball sideways, then the same person meets you on the 1st tee and wants to play you for $20 per side….DO NOT TAKE THE BET!!!!
Lesson: In my experience, 90% of all golf bets are won and lost before anyone hits their 1st shot.
2) In small towns, like the one I grew up in, guys (and girls) learn how to shoot 66 wearing steel toed boots, cut off jeans, with grips that haven’t been changed in 10 years, and clubs with bent shafts that all seem to have a nickname like ‘Betsy’ or ‘Betty Sue’ or ‘Thunder’. They play on circuits known as the ‘Manure Tour’, and most golf clubs (read: 9 – hole courses in which the roughs are more likely ‘mowed’ by sheep than by machine) have 20 – 30 members who always seem to play 1 stroke better than they need to on any particular day.
Lesson #1: You never know what you’re capable of achieving unless you set the bar higher than you think you can ever reach.
Lesson #2: When Lee Trevino stated that “Pressure is playing a $20 Nassau with only $10 in your pocket”…I can relate. Also, reread Lesson above about 90% of all bets are won and lost…
Lesson #3: If a guy is smiling while hitting shanks on the range and he’s wearing steel toed boots, just leave the course…quickly.
3) In that same small town, as a 17 year old kid ‘swimming among the sharks’, I was 4 holes up with 4 holes to play in the finals of the Cedardell Match Play Championship, one of the ‘Majors’ on the ‘Manure Tour’. I was practically holding the trophy, and practicing my victory speech, while teeing off on the 15th hole. Over the next 5 holes, I made 5 consecutive pars…and lost when Mr. Loux rolled in his 5th consecutive birdie putt on the 19th hole to beat me 1-Up.
Lesson: Too many to list…perhaps the best and worst golfing moment of my life all wrapped up into one. When it first happened: be gracious in defeat…keep your chin up…never let them see you cry. Years later reflecting back: appreciate the genius and greatness in others, even when it works against you…use setbacks to become better than you were yesterday…in life, you can always use one more birdie, even when you think the game is over.
4) We all have experienced those ‘special’ rounds, the ones seared into our memories because of how we played or where we played. Maybe it’s playing Pebble Beach, or winning the Club Championship. I’ve been fortunate to have several…playing Waterville Golf Links in Ireland, early one crisp, cool morning, as the sun was coming up and a light fog was rolling back out into the ocean…the entire golf course all to myself…my clarity of thought, about golf and life, was absolutely incredible that morning. Or, shooting 63 at Village Greens on aerified greens, feeling like I just couldn’t miss a shot no matter what. Those rounds are magical…spiritual…those rounds are few are far between. We all wish they would happen more often…or do we? I think we need to experience dozens if not hundreds of ‘normal’ rounds to truly appreciate those rare experiences that we’ll remember and treasure forever.
Lesson: Relationships are like that, you know. We meet hundreds of people going about our daily lives. Those people play a vital role in our happiness and well-being, so we can’t take them for granted. But when you meet someone extraordinary, like that perfect round, you have to treasure that person forever…they don’t come along every day.
5) I’ll never forget the 1st time I touched a golf club. Nor will I ever forget the 1st time I saw a golf club in my son’s hands. In the blink of an eye I went from student to teacher, from son to father, from inspiration to admiration, from trying to hit a ball myself to trying to duck out of the way before being getting hit.
Lesson #1: Life is good…
Lesson #2: But life goes by way too fast…grab your clubs and go play some golf today.
