EMA-I #4 - The lessons we can learn from golf? - Posted 6/1/11

At the age of 29 and with no ball striking ability I took up golf. It had never featured in my family history of sporting skills, but I decided that I would try. Now, over 20 years later, I still play albeit not very well. In truth, I don’t play enough to really improve and it is, at times, very frustrating, but the rewards are high and I hope to be playing for many years yet.

Given it was not a natural skill set for me, I have had to work hard to understand and improve even to the levels I have achieved. To those that know golf, I can, at my best play, to a handicap of just under a 20. Among my inconsistency, I can hit some, though few, of the sweetest shots that out-play, better golfers. I can also hit some of the ugliest shots ever seen.

I thought that in this fourth blog I would reflect on some of the learnings from golf that I think could aid a change agent. I hope there will be an, “Aha” or a “Oh, yes” moment somewhere in here for each reader. If so then, please let us know. If not then, maybe you have some of your own to share.
As I sat to think about this, I came up with a long list of possible subjects, but here I have pulled out half a dozen or so that mean the most to me. Here goes.

#1 Be brave enough to challenge and go against “natural” logic
What do I mean by this? Well, when I started learning I knew I had to get the little white ball into the air and hit it a long way (well most of the time anyway). So my brain was ready to hit it up and hit it hard. I cannot tell you how many times I scuffed the ball and it scuttled along the ground for a short distance or indeed I missed the ball altogether. The number of sweet shots was less than one in ten and maybe nearer 1 in 25, more a case of accident than design.

Well, I was told at an early stage that I needed to hit my irons down into the ball, to squeeze the ball between the club head and the turf if I wanted to get it up. I also knew that good golfers created divots, the strips of turf that their clubs cut from the ground as they struck the ball. The trouble was while my ears heard this, my body could not accept and act upon the knowledge. It seemed so counter-intuitive to hit down and waste energy hitting the ground and cutting the turf.

I was also told that delivering power to the ball all about timing rather than trying to hit the cover off it. I knew that I should have a smooth rhythmical swing, and let the club head do the work, but again when I was faced with a long shot across a lake or similar, my body went back to “hit it hard”. My club head would hit the speed of sound. Any element of control was lost and I was lucky that the head stayed on the club. The combined effect for me was a few good golf shots and lots of frustration.
Looking back it probably took me ten years to overcome this problem and while I am still not a great golfer, and doubt I ever will be, I do strike the ball better and more consistently now, obtaining improved results by defying what my body took to be natural logic.

#2 Play the course, not the driving range - course management is key
There is a term in golf about “course management”. My understanding is that this is about playing sensibly and with purpose, thereby maximising your chances of success. Many golfers think that they will reach their peak hitting ball after ball in a safe, dry driving range that looks and feels nothing like a true golf course. In contrast, the real game is played on real courses, subject to a variety of weather conditions and where a difference of a few inches can be very significant e.g. you are in a ditch or you are not, you are beside a tree or behind it, etc.

Course management is about having a strategy that considers the strengths and weaknesses your game and those of the challenges of the course you are playing. This can be garnered from a book, by talking to someone who has played it or indeed practicing on the course beforehand. That same strategy will also take account of the weather and condition of the course. If it is wet and windy the course will be very different from a warm day with hard ground. A 200 yard shot one day, may only go 180 yards on another – possibly the difference of hitting a bunker or not.

Course management is also about adjusting to the way you find the course and indeed the way you are playing – we all have off days. If on your second shot you find yourself in the rough rather than the fairway, it may well be better to “take your medicine” and play a safe, but short shot to get back on track again rather than make it so you have to hit a “once in a lifetime shot”, that by definition will rarely come off and more likely end you in deeper trouble.

This does not mean one should never be brave, but rather that one should weigh up all the options and consequences and take the one, that at the time and at the place you are, gives the best chance of overall success.

This is not something you learn on a driving range or in a book, though these both have their place, but rather by playing real courses with a sensible head on. Can you see the parallels?

#3 The more I practice the luckier I get.
This is a much attributed quote within the golf world. I am not sure I know who said it first, but the context within which I heard it was just after a golfer, I thought it was Lee Trevino, but I may be wrong, had just holed a very difficult putt and someone commented that it was a lucky putt. The retort was along the lines, “It is funny, but the more I practice the luckier I get!”

The two points I would bring out here are that it is about the right practice and that accepting the help, advice and support of others is often a key element – practicing the wrong stuff in the wrong way can be just as damaging.

Most professional golfers will spend hours with a coach or coaches on practice facilities. Before a tournament, they will usually play the course two or three times, often hitting more than one ball from a variety of positions. They will also send out their caddie to scout and document the course so that they have the finer details of precise measurements, etc. for use if and when they are needed.
As an amateur golfer I don’t have access to all that support, but the principles are still true and the difference is self-evident if I have had the chance to play a course before, even if the conditions are very different.

In my change world, I have access to loads of experience and to training opportunities. I also look for ways to practice and test ideas and approaches before I need to use them in a critical situation.

#4 Be open to change yourself
This may be strange, but I have often found that some of the people most resistant to changing themselves are change professionals. In contrast when I look at professional and amateur golfers they are always looking for ways to get an edge. They look at and try new playing equipment regularly. They spend a lot of money on lessons and coaching. They keep up to date with rules and support accessories. They will try alternate putting methods, to rebuild a swing, and try new course strategies (for my part I leave my driver at home now and only use a driving iron!).

All in all, they are continually striving for ways to improve. In part this is probably because of the regular measurement of them against others, but it is also because they can assess their own progress by their handicap. The one thing few of them are and certainly none of the successful ones are, is complacent.

I am not sure how we can create that in the change world, but boy would it be powerful if we could.

#5 Don’t beat yourself up unnecessarily (when, in fact, you have done well)
As I have alluded to already, my standard of golf is not high, in large part because I am not very consistent. When I do hit a sweet shot, I can marvel at it like anyone else, but in the past I also had a common tendency to say something like, “That was great, but if only it had…….landed two feet to the right…..not hit that rough……left me a clearer line to the pin….etc.”

Psychologically, the word “but” means that our brain only keeps the bit after the word and forgets what came before. Many new and poorer golfers have this huge tendency to have a momentary high and then negate it with self-criticism, criticism of something they had no right to expect in the first place.

For example, if one is approaching a green from say 100 yds, a good golfer could expect to hit the ball onto the green maybe 80%+ of the time. A poor golfer like me might only achieve 20-30% success. Now for the good golfer, he can realistically worry about if he is left or right of the pin, uphill or downhill, closer than 20ft, etc.. That is a fair challenge. As a poor golfer I should be looking to lift my percentage up to 50%+. Until I can achieve that regularly, a good position on the green is a bonus, but not a realistic expectation.

The lesson is to set realistic targets and ensure you give( self-)praise where appropriate so that you can look to improve further. Avoid pointless and unrealistic criticism of yourself or others.

#6 Inclusion/involvement is a powerful tool
One thing that the handicapping system in golf allows is for a whole range of people with different abilities to play together in competition or just on a friendly basis. This has allowed me to make some very good friends I would probably never have met if this had been a purely skill based pass time.
More importantly it has helped me build bonds within the family. Before he got too old I played golf with my new father-in-law. Then I played golf with my wife and friends. More recently I have played with my daughter and at times with my wife AND daughter. These have all been enjoyable events and helped build better relationships while still improving my golf – everyone sees something different that you can learn from.

The relevance to change is that sometimes we can just get caught up in our own world, with our own terminology and a close set of friends. I want to set the idea that by casting our personal net wider, including and involving others can be hugely rewarding on many levels.

#7 We don’t have to be the same to be successful
This last one point for this blog is the recognition that we do not have to be clones to be successful. While in golf, each golfer shares the same goal, plays by the same rules and has the same constraints on the equipment he can use, there is a huge variation in the techniques and “swagger” employed by different golfers.

I will cast out a few examples that may resonate.

•  Jim Furyck’s swing is far from a text book example, but he executes it well and has been a top player for some years, culminating in winning millions of dollars in prize money in 2010.

• Seve Ballesteros was a master shot maker, arguably coming from when he learnt with just a cut down 3-iron and had to hit a whole range of different shots with a single club. He was a great of his time.
• Bernard Langer was one of the first to use a broom handle putter at the highest level and boy could he putt with it.

In contrast you then have the “man machines” that were Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods, but you also have the characters that are John Daly and Ian Poulter.

I could go on, but suffice it to say there is considerable diversity within the ranks of successful golfers. This is something we should not lose in change, even when there is a huge drive to put everything into a process, a tool or a methodology. Viva la difference!

Well, I hope in this post I have at least made you think. I do hope it is not too impenetrable for non-golfers.