Golf isn’t Always Rainbows and Sunshine

A couple of weeks ago, I was helping out my swing coach, Eric, with a course management clinic. Towards the end of the clinic, Eric had me take the group down to the putting green and show them a couple of putting drills I do in my practices. One of the drills I do frequently is the 12 tee drill. You put 4 tees down at 3 feet around the hole, 4 tees at 4 feet, and 4 tees at 5 feet making 12 putts around the hole. The goal is to make all 12 putts in a row. I told the group that there are days that I will complete this drill on the first or second attempt, and other days where I am on the putting green for over an hour trying to complete it.

One girl heading into her freshman year of high school, Layla, was starting to get frustrated a few minutes into the drill. She asked me, “Do you ever get frustrated with yourself?” I said, “Yes all the time. In fact right now, I am frustrated with my swing.” Her eyes widened.

I said to her, “Frustration is a part of golf. If you are doing a drill and it doesn’t frustrate you, then the drill is too easy and isn’t serving its purpose. Drills are supposed to be hard, that means they are working. The faster though, you accept that frustration is a part of golf, the better player you will be. It’s a lesson that everyone learns.”

Once our conversation ended, a lightbulb went off. There is my next blog post. The lesson of frustration.

Frustration is very human, and something that everyone experiences with almost anything they do. Here is how I see it: in golf, if you are frustrated with a drill or your swing, it shows you care enough to complete the drill or fix your swing. Now there is a difference between quitting after being frustrated and using frustration as motivation to get better. If you quit every time you get frustrated, you won’t ever get better.

In a round of golf, rarely everything goes exactly your way. Golf requires you to be skillful in multiple areas on the course, the tee, the fairway or rough, around the greens, thus making it even harder compared to other sports to play consistently. I have found through my 10 1/2 years of playing this game that the rounds I accepted that I will make mistakes and move on from them are the rounds I played better. The rounds where I was trying to “avoid” making mistakes out of fear of frustration I was more frustrated during and played worse.

Now, learning how to deal with frustration is a constant journey with no real destination. This might seem daunting and impossible, but overcoming frustration is a great feeling. The feeling of walking off the course, knowing you didn’t have your best game, but still managed to put together a really good round. The feeling of when you complete a putting drill after you stood on the green for 2 hours trying to finish it. The feeling of winning a tournament after the previous tournament was frustrating.

Frustration has nothing to do with physical skill. It has everything to do with your mind. Use frustration as fuel to get better, but don’t let frustration take over when you aren’t playing great. I struggle with this all the time, and I really should take my own advice, but as I said, frustration is a constant journey with no destination.