Breaking into the 80’s

For years, I have been a casual golfer playing only when invited and pretty complacent with just getting on the course and having a little fun.  The older I get the more curious I have become about doing new things, but also doing them well.  This summer, I had an opportunity to play some golf with my brother in law while he was in town visiting us for a few days.  As most rounds of golf, I ended up losing most of the balls I brought with me and left the course with an expected but still disappointing score of 115 for an 18 hole round.  Normally I just shake it off and not really worry too much about an average, if not below average score.  This time the difference was I had my two sons with me on the course for the first time.  Something about me not being able to show them what a decent round of golf looked like didn’t sit well with me.  That day I left the course thinking to myself, what would I need to do to improve my golf game this summer?

A mentor at work used to use this analogy about a Christmas tree in the living room in the month of March.  At first after Christmas, it feels out of place after December but the longer you go without taking it down the less odd it feels until you stop paying attention all together that its there and it just fades into the background of your consciousness.  That’s how I feel about the golf range literally right next to my house.  We have lived in my current house for 8 years now and for 8 years it has just faded into the background of my consciousness.  I drive by it every day.  It wasn’t until after that lousy round of golf with my boys I found myself hitting range balls here for the first time in 8 years.  Christmas in July.

The 10,000 hour rule from the book “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell, says if you practice on a skill for 10,000 hours, you’ll have a good chance at becoming an expert at it.  I remember reading this back in college and loving the idea of being able to create a system to develop expertise instead of assuming you had to be born with it.  I’m a tinkerer, an experimenter, I love to do new things and learn new skills.  So I set a goal.  By the end of the year, I would improve my golf game and the outcome would be that I would play a round of golf and score in the 90’s (99 was the score I was shooting for).  Let’s do the math and break that down into an approach.  There are typically 36 stokes per 9 holes for par, 18 holes per round which puts us at an average of 72 strokes per round for par.  So in order for me to shoot a 99 I would need to stay under 27 strokes over par.  If we spread this out over the all the holes on average I would need at a minimum to double bogey 9 holes and bogey 9 holes, giving me 1 stroke to spare.  This also assumes I don’t par any holes.  In my head this is perfectly reasonable and achievable.  In fact, going back to my last post and the 4% challenge/skill ratio, I was not sure if I was setting my goal aggressive enough.

With goals and an approach now in place, how did I execute this plan?  The first thing I did was give myself a chance to be successful in my goal by creating an environment that would allow me to practice consistently.  I’m a busy guy with commitments, a growing family and a busy schedule.  So how would I make the time to practice.  Well first thing I did was get the kids involved.  I invested (because that’s how I justified spending the money:) in some golf clubs for the boys.  This did two things, combined my priority of spending time with my kids with my priority of getting better at my golf game.  Intersections baby.  Next thing I did was make it easy for me to practice.  For me, I was lucky enough to have this awesome golf facility with a driving range literally right across the street from where I live.  So I added this to a routine in my life.  Once per week, whether or not it was at a lunch break or a slow Friday afternoon after work I would drive to the range and hit a large bucket of range balls (approximately 100 balls) for about 30 mins and work on my form, consistency and different clubs I would need to be able to hit comfortably in a live round.  Then I would go to the chipping green practice area for another 30 mins and work on my short game (chipping and putting).  I started doing this in June and continued throughout the summer.  Every week, at least once I’m at the range.  I’ve calculated that I’ve now hit over 2,000 range balls in about 20 weeks.  Lastly, San Antonio has a great system of City golf courses called the Alamo City Golf trail.  I looked into memberships and for $69 per year, I become a card holding member of the Alamo City Golf trail with access to over 15 different city courses here in San Antonio with great discounts and membership fees to play more often.  One of the things I have started doing to complement my rigid exercise routine with my new pursuit of shooting a 99 is instead of riding a golf cart when I play golf, I walk the course.  This not only slows my mind down and let’s me focus on my strategy of my next shot it adds a nice calorie burning dimension to my round.  Another intersection baby.  With my membership, I can play 9 holes on a Friday evening walking the course for about $20!  This totally dispelled my preconceived notion that golf was too expensive.

For me, life is about experiences.  I invest in experiences just as much as I invest in my future.  Experiences are the present and the present is what creates flow in life.  Over the last few months, I’ve played a round of golf with my best friend, my brother in law, my cousin who I don’t see enough of, my two boys and a good family friend and his son.  I have met strangers on the course that I’ve learned from and shared stories with.  I met a 70 year old man in amazing shape who shared with me his secret.  Walking.  He walks everywhere, in fact he has walked across the united states from San Diego to Florida.  His story not only inspired me, it made me realize how many people are out there everyday that have their own story that we don’t even know about.  It gave me inspiration to share more and be a better human. 

This last week, I took Friday off and met my cousin from Austin half way in the hill country to play a round of golf.  He’s a mentor, family and someone I look up to.  He’s also a very good golfer.  As like most weeks, I hit the range the day before to get the muscle memory going again and then woke up Friday morning, grabbed a taco and coffee and headed to the hill country for a good 18 holes of golf.  We talked about life, kids, family and developing our golf game.  We talked shop, we talked investments and we talked about the future.  So much to cover in 18 holes!  I played the best round of golf I’ve played ever.  After the first 9 holes I had shot 46 over on a 36 stroke front 9!  Pretty much bogey golf with 1 par.  As we turned for the back nine, I was feeling great and proud that the work I’ve put in over the last summer felt like it was paying off.  Something about being able to show up on the course and feel good about your game creates an energy between players that elevates the conversations you have and creates a surface area of innovation and creativity.  As we played the back 9, I continued to feel good and my strokes were finding their way to the hole very consistently.  As we tee’d up for the 18 hole I looked down at my score and I sitting at a 43 on the back nine!  This meant that if I pared this last hole I would not only shatter my original goal of breaking into the 90’s with a 99, but I had a chance to break into the 80’s with a solid par on this last hole.  As I teed off, my shot landed perfectly on the fairway of this very short par 4.  I hit a nice approach shot that got me close to the green but still a little shy of a putter shot.  A nice chip got me about 15 feet from the hole.  I kid you not, it was just one of those kind of days.  As I focused on my put, I took a deep break let the club do it’s thing and sunk the 15 footer to par the hole and wrap up the best round of golf I’ve ever played. 

Breaking into the 80’s doesn’t really mean much from a score perspective for me.  It’s much less about that number as it relates to whether I’m a good golfer or not.  It’s more of a marker of progress.  A sign of persistence and symbol of hard work and focus.  It also validates my approach to life, invest in experiences, create goals and then build a system to give yourself a chance to hit your goals.  It’s a life mantra and something I practice each and every day.  Today, I’m going to pick up Eli from school and we are going to hit the course and try and get a round in before sun set.