By Ben Powers, ACC
Ever wish you could take your golf game to the next level? Imagine how much more fun you’d have and how proud you’d be if you could carve just a few strokes off your score! What if I said you could score 15 shots fewer by next weekend? Too good to be true, you say? Well, if I can do it, so can you!
The extraordinary week started on my birthday- May 16 of this spring. I’d been planning a golf outing with my girlfriend, Erin, my two brothers and my dad. We picked a perfect day and a beautiful Vermont golf course. We’d all been looking forward to it for some time, and I had been practicing hard since early April. I had high hopes for my round as we teed off just after 1pm.
Growing up, my focus was on anything but golf. Baseball, soccer, lacrosse, fishing, waterskiing, hiking. I loved playing outside and testing myself at new sports. My brothers and I would hit golf balls in the yard from time to time because my grandfather had always played, and we had his rusty old clubs out in the garage. But I never saw the appeal as a young guy . I never made any noticeable improvement and was frustrated more than satisfied. Other pastimes consumed me, and off I went to college.
I’m the type of guy who picks the hardest thing I can find. As a shy kid from Vermont, I wanted to see if I could hack it in the city. After college at UNH I got a job selling investment products in Boston. During the market crash in 2008, I had my work cut out for me. Despite also being transferred to a new territory that summer I figured out a way to hit a huge sales goal by the end of the year and take home a nice bonus. Live in the city, job in finance: Check! On to the next challenge.
I’d been doing some sailboat racing on the weekends in Newport, and met a few guys who sailed professionally. In 2009, I left Boston and tagged along on the pro tour: the Caribbean in the winter, Newport and the Med in the summer. I also spent time on the West coast, in the Middle East, Bali and South Africa. Again the underdog, I worked my butt off until I had won two national championships, a maxi yacht transatlantic race, and many local titles. Check! Bring on the next challenge!
By age 30, I’d competed at an elite level in both business and sports, and had found a way to win. I saw people around me who wanted these same experiences, so I got to work laying out a blueprint. Now I use that framework to coach people in sales, entrepreneurship and career transition, and I spend a lot more time on shore. I love to ski, but when the snow melts in the Spring I’m still competitive and driven to take on a new challenge with the new season.
When Erin and I met a couple years ago, I was still a complete golf novice but eager to apply my winning formula. So I hit the driving range a few times in anticipation of playing with Erin, her brother and her dad. Even with practice, those were long, frustrating and embarrassing rounds for me. It seemed the more I wanted to play well and make a good impression, the lousier my performance. I new this wasn’t going to come easy, but then again that’s just how I like it.
I kept practicing and even hired an “inner game” coach to help me through what I knew to be my biggest opportunity: staying positive and motivated. I’d learned a valuable lesson that showed up many times in life: I wasn’t going to play well and THEN be happy, relaxed and confident. It needed to happen the other way around.
I cashed in again. After just a couple sessions on the range with my new mindful and “feel-based” approach, I straightened out my shots, learned to hit the ball further, and had myself so excited for the 2015 season that I treated myself to some new equipment – just in time for the Birthday Tournament!
Despite being so excited to play golf on a gorgeous spring day in my favorite place with my favorite people in the world, I would be tested yet again. My first shot was not straight- it went right. Way right. It curved off course, over some trees, rolling down a slope and finally settled at least 50 feet below the level of my target. It was down hill from there. Ouch!
Erin asked me if I was having fun later in the day, because I wasn’t saying much. I hesitated for a moment, and all I could say was “This is really hard!” In my mind were images of my clubs broken over my knee and “placed” in the woods. Why was something that should be fun so frustrating? And after all I’d learned, how was I not able to just have a great time with my family? It was a terrific challenge just to stay with it and play on to the end.
The 18th hole began with the tee standing high on a hill overlooking the course. A gorgeous view, but an intimidating sight for the struggling golfer! At the end of a long fairway was a pond, then a wide, deep sand-filled bunker. Just beyond, the green and the hole were guarded by a steep hill to the parking lot.
I hit a decent first shot almost all the way to the pond. This one also went a bit right, but when the ball stopped rolling it was safe enough and still playable! Maybe I could redeem myself and at least finish with a satisfying last hole. When I walked up to the ball, I saw I was only about 150 yards from my target on the back of the green. I could safely take two shots to go around the pond, but I also knew I could reach the green fairly easily if I hit my next shot well and cleared the water. As I settled in and tried to focus, there was a chorus inside my head both cheering me on and reminding me of all my recent blunders. “Splash!!,” the voices chanted.
It was another ok shot, but the thick, wet grass wouldn’t allow the club to pass through cleanly. Luckily, the ball didn’t go in the pond. Instead it landed a bit short of the green in the sandy bunker. Now, this wasn’t quite the carefully manicured course you see the pros playing on TV. Here, “sand” is more like gravel- a healthy mix of granite, VT clay and plain old dirt. Hitting the ball back out of bunkers is not my strength- I don’t even own a sand wedge. I tried to shut all that out and just focus on the good news: it was still playable and not at the bottom of the pond.
I dug my feet into the grit and lined up my shot. I was about 4 feet below the level of the green, 30 feet or so from the pin. I took a few practice swings and then pitched the ball neatly out of the gravel pit. It was in the right direction, but it stopped rolling about 10 feet short of the hole. I was happy- in three shots I was on the green! It could have been much worse (see: the rest of my day). Again I quieted the noise of my inner critic, who had become a whole crowd. I focused on finishing happy and let the putt roll. One of my favorite birthday presents was watching that 10-footer, my fourth shot, rattle into the bottom of the hole. I had made par! It was quite the comeback from my tough round through the first 17 holes.
What had I learned, forgotten and learned again on that day? I pulled out my score card and noticed that in addition to the par on 18, I had scored significantly better on the second half of the course. How did I recover from being so frustrated earlier? How did I regain the perspective that it wasn’t about me and my score, but about the 5 of us out playing a rolling course surrounded by pastures, barns and silos, and mountains decked out in their May flowers and greens? And how did I translate that recovery and extend my success by scoring a full 15 strokes better just the following weekend?
It certainly wasn’t easy, but I’d boil it down to a few keys:
1) Be AWARE of all that inner noise so you can CHOOSE what to listen to
2) Engage as much as you can with your playing partners- even small talk will make the game more fun, and keep you relaxed and outside your own head
3) If you’re achievement and results-oriented, like me, add in some goals around experience: stay observant, feel more, and smile before every shot to remind you of where you are and who you’re with.
Enjoyed this story and these tips? Call or email me and I’ll help you find the way to do the same in your own hobbies, your career, or your personal life. My clients enjoy tangible results in pursuit of all kinds of goals. I offer a highly trained and experienced sounding board, careful listening for details of what is and isn’t said, strategic action planning, and firm accountability. My background in coaching, corporate finance / sales, pro yacht racing and a BA in Psychology give me a wide range of perspectives to draw from. I keep my clients on the edge of their comfort zone, where they can learn and grow most sustainably. Life is competitive- get a great coach, build a strong team, play your best. Find your own way to say, “Check! Bring on the next challenge!”