AUGUST TIP OF THE MONTH

Discover your Source of Joy in Golf, then Rediscover

BY RYAN WILLIAMS PLAYER DEVELOPMENT PROFESSIONAL

Recognizing my predilection toward obsession as a junior golfer, my coach showed me a book called “Mastery,” by George Leonard. In the book, Leonard describes what learning and improvement actually looks like. According to his research, learning over time follows the curve below:

Looking at it closely, you’ll notice that skill increases rapidly in short periods of time with long plateaus between improvement. This graph is something I look at for myself and also show students to remind myself that to love golf, truly, is to love the plateaus. These are the times during which you are working just as hard for just as long without any real tangible growth to show for it. The rapid improvement periods are obviously the most fun and the most energizing but if playing great golf is your only source of joy in the game, that can be a dicey proposition. What’s great about golf is that it provides so many avenues for enjoyment. Let’s look at a couple:

Company:

Golf is meant to be played with others. The camaraderie gained during a round with friends or a golf trip can be the basis of a lifelong bond. Isn’t it funny how you can still remember the shot you or your friend hit on a trip 10 years ago? And how you celebrated a buddy’s hole-in-one?

Or the putt they made to take a few dollars out of your pocket at the end of close match? The good news here at Woodbridge is that there is plenty of great company to be found!

Scholarship:

Many enjoy golf as a means of gaining knowledge. Diving into research on how best to play the game or swing the club can be very energizing. Every lesson I’ve ever taken, seminar I’ve attended, or YouTube videos or podcasts from coaches I admire has given me renewed energy. It makes me look forward to coaching more the next day; not that I would impose a single concept on each student but, new information reminds us how much there is to learn!

Fanaticism:

Being a fan can bring great joy! Even when our teams lose important games, we still cannot wait for the next year. Following the PGA, LPGA, USGA events, College, local amateur and junior golf, or any other medium for competitive most certainly interests and inspires many golfers. Watching Brad Reeves grow up and turn into the incredible player that he is, I’m sure, was a great thrill for many of you! Xander Schauffele asserting himself this season by winning two major championships motivated the heck out of me! What’s more is that there is so much golf to watch! Thursday through Sunday, with the consistency of your paper boy, we have a chance to watch the best in the world. When you think of the characters the history of the game has produced, how can being a fan not energize?

The Course Itself:

I’m guilty as charged in having become a golf architecture nerd over the last three years. At a time when my mind was consumed with playing and coaching golf, discovering all of the beautiful details that can be provided by the stage on which our game is played opened up an entire new world I hadn’t previously considered, at least outside of a tournament player’s perspective. What makes great holes great, how the routing of a course comes together, how one knob can change the way an entire hole plays, helped me discover a side of golf that had previously been off the grid. Loving golf courses also allowed me to enjoy a walk through nature more and I found myself less emotionally attached to how I was playing. Furthermore, my assessment of a hole or course had less and less to do with how I played. Ironically, because I was more joyful on the course, I began to play better!

Competition:

Perhaps the ficklest source of joy comes from pushing oneself to get as good as possible and then test those skills in tournaments. The ones that do it for a living have no choice but to embrace the plateaus because they spend every day working hard at something that only provides truly validating moments (wins, high finishes, big checks, etc) a few times per season. Think about it, Tiger Woods, the golfer who won at the highest percentage of any player ever, won less than 30% of his starts. That said, the highs from those moments are worth all of that sweat equity for those people. For me, it makes me look forward to coaching and simply being at a golf course more!

As many have said, golf is a game for a lifetime. Like life, there are many ups and downs. A more detailed example of the Mastery Curve would have innumerable little peaks and valleys within each plateau. How we respond to success as well as failure, ultimately, is what determines how good we become. Hopefully, we have several different sources of joy within the game. Perhaps I listed one you hadn’t considered. If so, please don’t hesitate to stop me and ask for a suggested reading or viewing! Until then, make enjoyment and learning your first goal the next round you play!