I know from past mishaps that there is a valuable lesson for me in my not so artful finish yesterday. I believe my willingness to meet and overcome failure has been the biggest contributor to my relatively quick improvement in golf, as well as other successes in my life. Finding the hidden lesson in my collapse on 18 yesterday will help insure I meet the challenge next time I get the opportunity.


Sunset Golfer by hugo on flickr.com

Last night I began reading The Cosmic Laws of Golf by Printer Bowler. In his chapter on the Law of Polarity (cause and effect), he challenges us to "trust that you are creating your experiences, as a way your soul has chosen to teach you about your choices and beliefs." He later explains that, "if you aren't getting the results you expect, take a gut-check to see if you truly want it because you always get what you accept and believe you are.

That pretty much says it all. Bowler is suggesting that I created my collapse, or sabotaged my chance to win, to teach myself who I truly believe I am. At some level, I wasn't ready to win.

I started playing competitively to further challenge and test myself. My intention hasn't been to win tournaments or be the best. However, I can't ignore the fact that I've improved to a point now where on any given day, I can win.

I worked harder than I ever have yesterday to make every shot my best, to make birdies, to save pars - up to the point of the collapse. Going 3-under for a stretch of 13 holes with no bogies is perhaps my best performance in a round ever. It took intense focus over every shot and every putt. I feel like I played to my potential for the first time. But I failed to finish it off. Not because there's still a part of my game that needed improvement, but because at some level I just wasn't ready.

I don't think my problem was so much a fear of success, but that I was simply unprepared to win or shoot level par in a tournament. This was new territory for me. Like anything else, you can rarely do something you haven't done before until you first try, and fail.

The second time I got to 3-under after 7 holes, I pared the 8th instead of quadrupling it. The second time I got to 17 at 1-under, I parred the round instead of finishing with a triple and double bogie. And the next time I get a low round in a tournament, I'll birdie 18.

Labels: Books, Cosmic Laws of Golf, Disciplines, Failure, Printer Bowler