Can GOLF expose Character?
The game of golf is a game of decision making. After playing the game for many years, I have realized most who play forget this.
Our decision making comes from experiences in real life situations and how we have dealt with them in the past. A example would be drinking a hot cup of cocoa. When you were a child, when you took to a sip, you learned it would burn your mouth, and ever since then you began taking small sips to prevent burning yourself. When you had your first interview for a job, and blew it for lack of experience and confindence, you made adjustments over time and got better at interviews.
Later in life that big chance for the job you always wanted came along and you blew it because of the different levelof the playing field. Your lack of confidence is exposed; this is where we learn to trust.
The First Tee Box is where the game begins. Most of the time this is a par four, that gives you four shots from tee to green to get the ball in the hole. Trust and decision making begins here. The normal par four you will hit your driver; your longest club, and then shorter clubs until you reach the hole.The mind has to trust that all the practice and physical preparation will produce the proper shot. Because over time what seems like the right shot did not always produce the proper outcome. Doubt has slipped into your mind and can cause the body to fail to execute the proper swing. As in the failed interview later in life, you had the experience and talent but just lacked the confidence at a higher level to produce the right outcome.
So you hit a wayward tee shot; now you have a decision to make. You have a bad lie and can't reach the green in 2 to make par. The smart shot is to lay up at a good yardage in the fairway and give yourself a chance to1 putt for par. Or, at worst make bogie, taking double bogie out of play.
Getting the ball on in two would almost guarantee par; now your mind starts to get creative and you start seeing things you might be able to do to get the ball on the green in 2. Open the club face so you can hit a slice around the trees over the water and onto the green! Not a good decision; if you hit the tree, you could go out of bounds and incur a penalty stroke or go into the water and have a penlaty stroke ( if you were that good you would not have been in the position you're in.)
Hope deferred makes the heart sick! You try to cut the ball around the trees and go in the water. Now your confidence level is dropping and your inner adult is scraming, "I SHOULD HAVE LAYED UP!", now I have to hit a great shot over the water to make double bogie. Your muscles are tightening up, your mind is all over the place. "Just don't hit it in the water again!" You swing - in the water it goes again. Humiliated, you still have the same shot and you know your round for a low scoring game is over.
Smart decision making is important even after it seems all is lost. Iif we can take control of our emotions, and start making good decisions, from that point on we can recover from anything; a poor interveiw or a poor golf shot. When your confidence level is low its hard to make good decisions. We have to learn to play the game inside of our own ablity; trusting in what we have learned up to this point.
Taking risks is not always wrong but we have to calculate risks in order to make sure they are worth it, and that we can recover. No risk no reward. To get on a par five in 2 shots is a great reward; always requiring a long second shot to the green. The longer clubs are harder to control from the fairway, and will require all the confidence you have. Minimize your risk by aiming at a spot around the green, that if you push or pull the ball you don't get into trouble (this is called the bail out zone.) Honing our judgement skills on the course and in life will help us when taking risk, look for safe landing places.
When I see people defying these principles on the golf course, I would bet that is the way they handle adversity in the real world. I have personally noticed the weaknesses and the strengths I have show up on the golf course. I have found that in my relationship with God, and my understanding of His Word, those defects in my thinking and actions show up on the golf course. I have to make a conscious desision to change the things that disable me. When I make the adjistment needed I see good results in other areas of life.
Golf has been a good sounding board for me to weigh out the important things in my character that need change. When I see someone throwing clubs, screaming obscenities, it makes me wonder what his home life looks like; his relationships at work and at home. I would bet they are the same .
"If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done." author unknown
