Failing to succeed is a reoccurring theme in my life recently! Driving to work everyday, I listen to self-help, novels, or how to books on CD. I find that this helps pass my 20 minute journey each morning and evening. The CD I was listening to over the past couple days is from Success Magazine. There were five stories that dealt with failure and how it ultimately leads to success in life. As I listened, it hit me that their message was exactly the same as anyone trying to lower their golf score!
How many times has a player practiced the same chip shot from 10 yards off the green; each time, they make a minor adjustment until they are confident in the shot. How often have we gone to the range and hit ball after ball until we felt comfortable? How many rounds of golf have we played only to see slow glacier-like improvement in our scores? Each time we play the failures are actually lessons for success.
This is exactly the message from the speakers on the CD. They stated: “fail often, fail fast, and fail big”! There is truth to their statement, but I would also add – and learn from your failures. It is important that golfers do pay attention to the many aspects of their game. Try to emulate the successes and always be open to learn.
Last night I played my first nine holes of golf for the year! It was very exciting and rule 25-1 was my best friend (casual water). The course was extremely soggy and it was difficult to find dry land on some of the shots. As I continued to play, I quickly realized that taking a divot was a real bad idea! My wedge was more like a shovel and my divots were more like patches of sod. Each swing taught me that I should be picking the ball instead of hitting through it. So after the third hole, I stopped taking a divot and my success rate went up significantly. This small example shows that failure is not necessarily a bad thing as long as we take away a positive lesson.
So as the season unfolds, I hope to fail early, learn, and be successful when it counts! Have you had repeated failures only to conquer a skill? If so, what was it?
Golf season is here and I am a grateful golfer! See you on the links!
The Grateful Golfer 
The CD I was listening to over the past couple days is from Success Magazine.
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Jim, I agree that we can’t be afraid of failure as long as we learn from it. The challenge us weekend golfers have is with the “fail often” mantra. It’s more geared toward someone able to dedicate more time towards their quest for improvement and iterate through cycles of failure/learning/success. We weekend warriors maybe play once or twice with little time to work on the details in between. We are looking for a more satisfying experience at game time. I’ve tried to combat this by taking detailed and accurate notes after every round and practice session on what worked and what didn’t. I refer to them before I hit the course and at least have a plan for what I want to do. That being said, nothing is a given in golf and some days you just have to play with whatever game shows up. Still, it’s both a blessing and a challenge and is why the quest for improvement in our game is so engaging. Thanks!
Brian
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Brian
Your sage observations are always welcome. Your view about the weekend warrior is correct and most are looking to enjoy the game with the lease amount of failure as possible. I guess a point I overlooked is the focus of the player; at each stage of a players game the amount of practice and dedication will vary, but the consistent aspect is to keep trying until they achieve their goals. Thanks for the comment it is always appreciated.
Cheers
Jim
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