26. It’s not how good your good shot is but how good your bad shot is

Possibly the most impacting lesson, or experience, I had at golf was back in the late 70s in a tournament in London. I was having what is best described as a roller coaster of a round with career best shots and career worst shots yielding birdies and double bogies.

A revelation hit me upon completion of the round when we were checking and signing the cards. My playing partner’s score was a 1 under par 69 which amazed me because he had never hit one shot that I could recall as anything special. This was a big shock to me as I was brought up believing that you could not shoot under par unless you hit it like God.

What became more impressive on reflection was the fact that the shots he hit had never looked like finding much trouble and this was not down to luck. The realization that golf is about the quality of your bad shots, not good ones, meant a massive change in the beliefs I had held until then.

It was a great example of Self Management as he kept focused and unruffled and another thing that struck me weeks after was the way he appeared to blend into the background as he went round in his own self created world. He was efficient and effective. A time and motion inspector would have been impressed.

I am reminded of this experience by many things but one that stands out in particular is reading the First Rule of Golf as laid down by the Royal and Ancient. It reads:

The Game of Golf consists in playing a ball from the Teeing ground into the Hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules.

There is no mention in Rule One or any of the other 32 rules that says anything about the quality of shots having to be top notch. I know that many players set themselves up with an incredible amount of unrealistic expectation by thinking they have to strike the ball pure in order to be able to play. I know that perfectionists have problems with this statement but it is because they have not, like many others, grasped a Real understanding of the game and what it is about.

The great Jack Nicklaus was the best ever exponent of being able to deliver winning performance's when striking the ball well below his best. Like all top players, he had a
very good quality bad shot in his armory and it was achieved by realising great struck shots are an added bonus and not the necessity that most would believe. Perfect shots happen but you cannot build consistent golf on them.

It was the best lesson as a youngster I ever had as it made me aware that the approach I was attempting was unrealistic and would not produce. There are many young players at club level today who are too pre-occupied with going for the big glamour shots only to become more and more disillusioned as this self inflicted pressure builds up. This is one of the reasons why some of these very gifted young players never reach the level that is expected of them.