I can hit the ball 300 yards, why shouldn’t I be able to stick it to 3 feet?
Heyyyy.
Yeah, I know, I’m late. But, I still showed up. Better late than never, they say. Fashionably late is right on time, I say.
Not to be surprised though, I’m always late. I used to tell my teachers that my mom said I was born late. I don’t think she ever said that but it got em off my back for a while. She did have a knack for being the reason I was late though. She was the “one last chore before we go” kind of parent. (Love you Mom.)
Come to think of it, I was a late bloomer in pretty much everything I’ve ever done. I was a pretty small guy growing up, probably still am, and I sure as hell didn’t have any athletic control of my limbs until I was about 25, even if nobody else thinks highly of my athletic gifts.
Same thing happened with me and golf. I’m not even sure how I originally got into it. I mean I’d picked up a golf club and hit a ball around the backyard before but I didn’t step onto a golf course until I was at least 20.
Sometimes, I watch golf on TV and it makes me feel like I should be able to do the things that the professionals are doing. I can hit the ball 300 yards, why shouldn’t I be able to stick it to 3 feet?
These kids on the Tour are only 23, I should definitely be able to do what they do, if not better.
The thing I forget however, is that most of these kids were born with a golf club in their hands. For them, it’s just an extension of their arms.
They’ve grown up with many more years of practice, coaches and spent hours after school at the course. I haven’t. I read books instead.
That’s why they’re making millions of dollars playing golf, and I’m living in a meager blogverse.
That’s not a bad thing though, it just means I haven’t put the same amount of time into golf yet. Malcolm Gladwell famously wrote that mastery of any subject takes 10,000 hours, and I’m probably somewhere around 900.
For the first time in my life, I actually feel like I’m making some progress though. I may never make the Tour, and that surely isn’t my goal, but I do feel confident that breaking 80 is within reach and breaking par shortly thereafter.
I’m making positive steps forward and I can tell that I’m getting better. That doesn’t mean I can let off the gas though, so I’m making moves to take it even further.
With setting better intentions, and taking a more structured approach to my game, I’m also going to take a few lessons from a real golf pro to see how that helps.
For one reason or another, I’ve always felt like getting a coach wasn’t for me, but now I feel like it couldn’t hurt. Even the best in the world have coaches. Maybe they’ll see something that I can’t.
I’m pretty excited, to be honest. Making progress feels good. So does lowering expectations and actually achieving the things I’ve set out to.
Sometimes, all we need, is to remember how far we’ve come, rather than looking at all the things we aren’t.