Graham Averill has turned 50 this year and he’s freaking out. Instead of buying a motorcycle or getting a tattoo, he’s decided to try to get really, really good at golf. He started this project as a 13 handicap attempting to reach scratch in a year. He is now a 10.3. Welcome to his midlife crisis.
I’m not what you would describe as “self aware.” I’ve never done therapy. I don’t understand meditation.
So I’m going to say something that’s out of character for me but here it goes. We’re in the Trust Tree. This is a safe space.
I’ve been journaling recently. About my feelings. More specifically, I’ve been journaling about my feelings towards golf. My fears, my hopes, my dreams … you know, middle-school diary stuff. And I’ll be damned if it isn’t helping me get better at the game.
You see, there’s nothing wrong with me physically. I’m in decent shape; I can hit the ball OK. Mentally? I’m an absolute mess.
The cornucopia of mental issues I have when it comes to golf is diverse but probably not unique to me. Where should I start? I often choke under pressure. A four-foot birdie putt is meltdown territory. I get nervous when I’m playing with people I know. Playing with new people isn’t a problem. I do that all the time and I hit the ball well and score well. But old friends? People I know through work? It’s like I’ve never swung a club before.
But wait! There’s more. Pare it down to a micro level and every once in a while I’ll do that thing where I stand over the ball and on the backswing, for no reason whatsoever, I’ll think “don’t chunk it.” And then I chunk it.
Again, none of this is groundbreaking. Some of you reading this might have similar issues. But I want to get better at golf and I think the mental game is a big part of what’s holding me back so I’ve poured myself into the mental side of the sport, listening to podcasts devoted to the subject and reading books that explore the golfer’s thought process in detail. I just finished a new book that dives deep into a golfer’s gray matter called Mastering Your Mental Game. It was written by Julie Elion, a long-time mental health coach with a gaggle of PGA Tour and LPGA Tour players on her client list, the most notable of whom is Wyndham Clark.
Anyone curious about how their brain works on the golf course should read this book but the gist of Elion’s practice is simple: You have to know yourself if you want to be good at anything, not just golf. Leaning into that classic Socrates’ quote, “an unexamined life is not worth living,” Elion encourages her clients and readers to dig deep into the pursuit of self-awareness in order to unlock better performance.
You could argue that golf itself is the pursuit of self awareness. It’s as much therapy session as it is a sport and I give golf credit for ushering a wave of introspection into my own life. I’ve played a lot of sports over the years and undergone a series of arduous adventures but none of them has forced me to hold a mirror up to myself like golf.
There’s so little action in this game and so much thinking that every round feels like an epic battle of “man versus self.” What I’ve discovered through playing golf is that I seem to be governed by an overwhelming fear of failure. That fear has dictated the majority of decisions in my life from how I approached relationships and sports as a kid to career choices in adulthood.
If I’m being honest, confronting that shortcoming is one of the reasons why I wanted to take on this Scratch By 50 project. I’m tired of being scared. So I’m trying something very hard in a very public way which is about as scary as it gets. I’m tackling my fear of failure head-on by trying something so hard that I’m essentially guaranteed to fail.
Fun, right?
On the golf course, that fear of failure manifests in a variety of ways but mostly it means that I play scared. I have a cautious, guide-y swing on the tee where I’m hoping the ball stays in play. Every chip shot is a prayer to just get the ball on the green. If I’m playing well, I adopt a “protect the score” mindset, taking the foot off the gas and pumping the brakes.
Elion addresses this issue in her book, citing Kobe Bryant’s “Mamba Mentality” thought process: If you play like you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail. She recommends journaling about golf to address the issue head on, explaining that naming your fears and acknowledging them is how you begin to move through them.
I want to play golf without fear so I’m being honest with myself and writing specifically about my fears in golf. It’s a work in progress but I’m already seeing some promising results. I play a lot of golf with my teenage son and, in the past, I’ve let his mood dictate how I play. Writing about that before our rounds and acknowledging the issue has allowed me to recognize what’s happening on the course and get ahead of it. I played a round recently with a childhood friend with whom I’ve always been competitive. I wrote about that unspoken competition between us and was honest about my desire to play well against this guy. Instead of floundering when the match got close, I put my foot on the gas and was eager to find ways to score.
I’m not cured. I played with another friend recently who’s been following this column. I put a lot of pressure on myself to play well because I thought that’s what he expected. I collapsed and hit shanks I haven’t hit in months. My swing fell apart and I left the round embarrassed.
So there’s still work to be done. Honestly, addressing fear is a challenge every time I step on the course but that’s the beauty of golf. This game gives us a tangible place to work on these intangible issues. It’s a playground for personal growth.
Dig deeper into one golfer’s struggle to get better at golf in middle age and read last week’s Scratch By 50 where Graham gives a detailed update on his game after four months of dedicated practice.
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