This post is about golf, but it isn’t really about golf, so please keep reading.
I play golf because I love it and am addicted and have been for years. I spend a lot of quality retirement time playing golf. Sometimes I play well, and sometimes, well, I don’t. My game has always been sporadic, but I thought I’d nail this once I retired. Another bubble burst.
My sometimes-mediocre game was starting to bother me, because I don’t do it just to get outside and enjoy nature or whatever it is people say. I like being outdoors and want to have fun, but golf is more fun for me when I play reasonably well.
Although I practice some, I don’t practice enough, and I don’t have a strategy for what to practice. Last week the club champion was in my foursome for weekly league play, and I watched her like a hawk. I think she’s in her 60s. Not a particularly long hitter, but she was deadly accurate and had a lot of skill around the green. If she wasn’t on the green, she chipped it close and then made the putt.
I understand she played as a child, and that makes a difference, but I still think I can follow her example. It doesn’t take strength or flexibility to chip and putt. But it does take dedication and focus to have a great short game. As we say in the Pekar family, it’s time to shit or get off the pot.
I’m probably going to have to drop a little money on lessons. And while I’m not one of those super-organized goal setters, I do need a plan. I no longer want to leave my game to chance, as in who shows up that day? The one who can play or the one who sucks?
The greatest challenge I face is not time, money, strength, flexibility or commitment. My greatest challenge is what’s between my ears. I’ve always been sort of a nervous Nellie about golf, and I’ve convinced myself I don’t like competition. While I play in casual events and just yesterday won a couple of little prizes at a member-guest day, I have so far avoided the serious amateur tournaments. I’ve assumed I don’t have the fortitude to play with the big girls.
While I am in awe of the club champion’s game, she doesn’t hit the ball any farther than I do. That was kind of an eye-opener for me. I didn’t see anything that looked impossible. I might not achieve her level of success, but with training and practice, I believe I can improve significantly.
And all that makes me wonder about my long-held thoughts about competition. It’s not really about liking it or not liking it – it’s about fear. Fear of failing. What I fear, I avoid. I had this same problem at work early in my career. I didn’t want to play “the game” and was willing to let less talented people surpass me because I didn’t have the confidence to compete and possibly lose.
Eventually, I stepped up and forced myself to play the game and play to win. And I did it without sacrificing my core self – it just took time to find that space where I could be me and yet thrive in a tough corporate setting.
I did it before, and now I’m going to do it again. I’m done saying I don’t like competition. I fear competition, but I’m working on it. Same deal as before, except this time I’m retired, and this time it’s golf. Game on!
Are you still fighting fear in retirement? What do you want, and what’s holding you back?