I played in a golf event a couple of days ago sponsored by our men’s group
at church. My team consisted of four great guys: Matt, my nephew (a single digit handicap golfer), Peter (who was on my team last year), Bill (first time playing in this event), and myself. This was something I thought I had been focused on for a while as it is a great social/fellowship time for me. I’m not the greatest golfer as I don’t play enough. When I have played a lot in the past, I’ve actually gotten pretty decent, but that isn’t my game right now. The format was a four-man scramble, where after each shot you decide where to hit from and all players hit from the same spot. We had to use at least two tee shots from each player, which is pretty standard. I hadn’t hit a golf ball since the middle of last year, so I went into the day with only the expectation to have fun and make great connections with my team. My focus was to try and hit a reasonably good shot, putting it into the fairway.
Each group of players was given a tablet connected to one of the golf carts so we could enter our scores and the organizers could create a leader board so all the teams knew where they stood. You could also send messages to any or all of the other teams out there, so if you had a desire to throw down some smack to one of your buddies, you had that opportunity. It was really a very cool idea and worked remarkably well once we got our tablet to work right, which took 3-4 holes.
For the first time in my golfing career, the team I was on played very consistently and we could see we were in the hunt to finish first. I hadn’t been on a team that made par or better on every hole, ever. Now that we could watch our position in the tourney, there were times where others on the team started to be concerned with what the other teams close to us were doing. Not the first time this has happened, and guaranteed it won’t be the last.
As I noted, my golf game wasn’t as good as I had hoped it would be, and I just didn’t hit the ball as far as my playing companions. We finished the first nine tied for the lead, which was exciting. As we came down to the last 6 or so holes, we could see that we were in first place with a one-shot lead over the closest team. It seemed that we would post a score one hole ahead of them, so until the end, it was hard to tell exactly what the standings were. At times, they would post a score of birdie when we made a par, which put us even.
This was a great opportunity for me to utilize my training as a coach. I reminded my ‘mates they couldn’t control what Team 11 was doing, only what Team 3 (our team) was doing. Getting wrapped up in what the other team(s) were or weren’t doing was taking our focus away from what we really wanted. Encouraging our team to focus on what our goals were, which was to post the best score we could on each hole, turned out to be of real benefit. It took consistent reminders, but we all took control of what we could control, which was ourselves and the outcome for our team.
It was a great opportunity for me to use what I’ve learned and to help others out, not only in the moment of playing in a golf tournament, but to have some influence on their lives. Will they remember the lesson about focus? Maybe, maybe not. I choose to believe that at some point in time, they will recall they can’t control what anyone else is doing, and to try to distracts them from what they truly want to accomplish. Staying focused on what you can control and what you are pursuing will dramatically increase your success rate.
Our team ended up winning the event. As I said earlier, I hadn’t been on a team that was even competitive before, let alone win one of these! I had such a great time and look forward to playing more golf with these guys. There was more than a little irony in the prize bag we got. We got a really great golf hat, a dozen golf balls, and a couple of donated items that I had to laugh at. I have shaved my head for nearly 17 years now, and in the prize bag were a small jar of hair styling mousse and a gift certificate for a free haircut. Both elicited great laughter from the assembled group of players in the event.