Utilitze your life skills to improve your golf

The First Tee, now in its 29^th year, was established to teach and improve children’s life skills through the game of golf. Today we’re examining how you can utilize your adult life skills, that you’ve already learned (or should have), to enhance your golf game. If we examine closely there are probably over 100 personal skills that are necessary for advancement and success in today‘s challenging and complicated world. But we will deal with nine of the most important as they relate to golf.

First, let’s consider attitude. You didn’t become successful in your career by a bad attitude. I’m amazed at how many golfers I see, who are successful at their work, who have a sour attitude on the golf course. As Henry Ford once said, “if you believe you can or believe you can’t, either way you’re right.” Next, we have goals. Everybody who excels at their work or profession has progressed to a high degree because they set lofty goals and marched methodically toward achieving them. To be the best you can be at golf you need goals, and sub-goals, and a detailed plan to get to that goal. In a similar vein we can’t expect to play good golf without preparation. That means training and instruction as well as lots of practice. Legendary Indiana basketball coach, the late Bobby Knight, advised, “most people have the will to win, but few have the will to prepare to win.”   

The value of discipline cannot be overestimated when it comes to a chosen profession or sports. Lazy sloths don’t make good employees. Lazy golfers don’t make the cut. It takes discipline to get up early, get chores done, workout, go to the gym, do the job of raising and protecting a family and living a balanced life. There is no other sport that demands more discipline than golf. That’s why most folks don’t bother. Then there is the role of emotional intelligence, which is essentially the learned ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions, while keeping them under control at all times. An individual, solitary game like golf (just you and the ball) requires steady mind and nerves to play your best. Professional golfers have sport psychologists to work with players’ thinking and emotions.

People who have important jobs have the responsibility of making decisions that are the right ones. Decision making is sometimes a frightening burden. After delaying the invasion of Europe for 48 hours due to bad weather, General Eisenhower made the agonizing, decision to issue the go-ahead for the 6^th of June, 1944. The rest is history. Decision making in golf necessarily requires astute and swift information processing, known as “rapid cognition.” Some Tour pros need to learn that. Next there’s the matter of flexibility, which is critical both in the workplace and on the golf course. For managers and executives flexibility implies refined interpersonal and social skills. In golf it involves both mental and physical skills. The importance of “awareness and adjustment” can’t be underestimated. As a golfer you have to be aware of everything that is going on around you, without being distracted. It takes practice. For example, for a shot to the green, you need to notice the wind, what the lie of the ball is like, the location of the pin, and where a safe “miss” would be; and then adjust your club selection and swing accordingly. The best golfers do that.

Charlie Blanchard is a guest columnist for the Bulletin. He is a retired golf teacher and writer. He is credentialed by the PGA for playing ability. He can be reached at docblanchard71@gmail.com.