What I learned on the golf course that had nothing to do with golf!
Number One and Most Important is…
All the fun happens outside the comfort zone…I really want to take credit for this, but I really can’t…A client/friend gave me that one a few years back and man, was he right.
The school where I work was having its annual golf outing, and a friend thought it would be a lot fun if we put together a couple of foursomes…Great! Sounds like a plan…Oh wait, I just remembered…I don’t play golf…never have. This is crazy…I can’t go out there with REAL golfers…
But, then I thought…Why the hell not! How cares? This is a fundraiser for a school I take great pride in. Thankfully six out of the eight of us were all in the same boat…new to golf, but ready to take on the challenge. We all got matching argyle vests, and I wore my husband’s tam and off I went.
And James, you were right…all the fun is outside the comfort zone…Which leads me to my next lesson.
Number Two…
It’s okay to laugh at yourself…and boy, did I laugh at myself. I can’t lie, I was very self-conscious at first, but after a few hole,s I was having a blast. W
e are so serious all the time…worrying about this and worrying about that…are we being judged? Am I good enough to do this? Are people going to have an opinion about what I’m doing?
The day of the outing I didn’t care….I let loose and if you know me at all, you know that letting loose it very new to me. I swung that club like I was a pro only to have missed the ball completely, or I swung that club making contact and thinking it was a hole in one and it had only moved a few dozen inches.
The antics on the course were probably frowned upon by the “real” golfers, but it truly didn’t matter…my foursome laughed until our sides hurt. Most importantly…we didn’t laugh at each other, we laughed with each other…Well, not really. We did kinda laugh AT each other because, many times, we were just that funny.
Number Three…
It’s okay to ask for help and it’s perfectly fine to take direction….We don’t know everything! Asking for help if very uncomfortable for and this must have started when I was a child. I must have asked for help and either I was dismissed or I was made to feel dumb cause asking for help has always been a problem for me.
Our “captain” is a skilled, amateur, get-out-of-the house golfer. He thoroughly enjoys the game, and he’s really good. It took some courage to ask him to take me to the golfing range to “hit a few”, but thankfully, he was more than gracious to help me out…probably because he didn’t want me to embarrass him too much out there.
Along with the difficulty of asking for help, I struggle very deeply with taking direction. I’m very self-conscious and I am not at all athletic. I have a tough time with directions…so wait you want me to do A, B and C…okay let me do A and then I’ll try B and C can come later. I’m not the quickest learner. But, thankfully, Brian was very patient and explained everything so I could understand it. He allowed me to screw up a couple of times to show me what I was doing incorrectly, and I was open and relaxed in learning this new skill. He is a teacher by trade, but he’s my friend first and I thank him for giving me the confidence I needed to face 18 holes of that madness.
And finally,…
I know I said three things, but there is really four…
Make sure you look better than you golf…words to live by right there…In fact, when I spoke to a golf committee member a few days after the event, and I was telling him what a great time I had, he told me he voted me best dressed…and there you go!
It was a successful day after all!
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