What Athletes Do Well on the Golf Course

 

One of the joys of golf is that it is a wonderful platform for spending time with others. Everyone tends to be on their best behavior, you’re out in nature, and there’s great camaraderie in navigating a course and celebrating good shots and sloughing off bad ones. Whether making new friends or deepening ties with existing ones, it’s hard to beat a round of golf for quality time together. 

Along the way, I’ve had the pleasure of playing with people who have played competitive sports at the highest levels. What’s interesting to me is that, regardless of the sport, there are invariably common traits that transfer well to success in golf: 

1. Good hands. Every sport involves some level of hand-eye coordination, and while it’s helpful to be able to control your body to do a complex task, it seems like the hands are the differentiating skill for people who have excelled at some sport. Which means that athletes tend to be good on and around the green, because it is there that the delicate movements of our hands come in to play the most. 

2. Taking care of your body. Hydration, snacks, and stretching are not after-thoughts for athletes, even if they have become routinized. Golf may not be as physically demanding as the sports my colleagues have performed in, but it does require managing your body over the course of a long round. I’ve noticed good attention to detail on this front. 

3. The ability to stay in the present. Golf is such a mental game, and one area I struggle in is stewing on the previous shot or worrying about the next one. Professional athletics demands that people lock into the task at hand, and then success or failure move on to the next task to lock into. This is probably the area where the difference between their skill and mine is most pronounced. 

There’s a reason many parents get their kids into sports. So many life lessons, like teamwork and sportsmanship and working hard. The three characteristics above have clearly been mastered by my colleagues who have played at the highest levels of their respective sports, and it shows when I join them on the golf course.