What Is Golf Failure, What Is Golf Success?

When you talk about your golfing successes and failures, what do you say? Do you say anything like this?

About Success:

I won my clubs monthly medal.

I beat my buddy on the final hole.

I scored 79, that's 1 better than I've ever scored before.

About Failure:

I didn't win my clubs monthly medal.

I lost on the final hole to my buddy.

I still didn't break 80.

You and I have said things like this regularly I'm sure. The trouble is we often miss what has really gone on, categorising a situation as either a success or failure too quickly, this is especially true of failures. Let's take a fresh look at Success and Failure.

Here are the same results but with some more background detail.

About Failure:

I didn't win my clubs monthly medal, but I scored the best I've ever scored in competition.

I lost on the final hole to my buddy, I made par but he sunk a 20 footer for birdie.

I still didn't break 80, the weather was horrendous and everyone was 4 or 5 shots higher than normal.

All of a sudden things aren't so bad are they?

It's important to put things in perspective; some players regularly do things we can't do and consider them as failures and more often than we realise we do things that are successes, you just don't acknowledge them.

Now here's the thing, whether you intend to or not, you listen to what you say to yourself, and you definitely believe what you say to yourself.

So you need to be saying good stuff to yourself!

If you are always turning every event into a failure you're expectations will be of failing.

Ok I know, you won't win every week, you'll not shoot your best round every time you tee it up - so isn't this failing?

Look at the Tour, every week 150 player's start and only one player wins, leaving 149 players who move on to the next event without a win. In fact, check this out, less than 10% of tour players ever win any events! Think about it over 150 players and no many more than 25 events a year, factor in multiple winners and you can see most tour players lose.

If they measured success by wins only they'd soon go and find alternative careers.

What can you do to get rid of thinking about failing?

Change what success mean.

This is the best definition of success I've ever heard and it will totally change how you see success and failure.

"Success is the pursuit of a worthy goal"

Not the achievement of a particular outcome, but the pursuit of a worthy goal. Here's how I see this in golfing terms, and how you can apply it to your game. If your worthy goal is to shoot regularly in the 70's, the pursuit of that goal may require you to do several things:

Practice regularly

Take lessons.

Get good at the short game.

Think well on course.

Prepare for rounds.

And any other aspects you consider will help you on your way to being 70's shooter.

You can feel happy you are succeeding if you are doing all the above whether or not you are playing in the 70's yet or not. And on the other hand, if you aren't paying attention to these areas you should recognise your lack of effort as failure. For example, you've been working hard on everything you need to improve in your game, but the weather is awful, you catch a couple of bad breaks in the round, and despite all your best efforts the putts just don't fall and you score 84.

Your were still successful and should celebrate your success if you did everything you needed to in the lead up to the round and I the round - You did what you should in the pursuit of your goal.

So start thinking this way and you will be successful, you'll soon get better results, more enjoyment and above all the sense of achievement that only come with the pursuit of a worthy goal.