Life lessons from golf

I have learned quite a lot from today's game. We two were arranged to play with a guy from Finland. I got started to play at course just about 6 months ago, this is the first time I played with a stranger. Thay guy was about 6 feet tall, hitting more than 200 yards with Driver. Any how he is quite a couple levels above us. At the beginning, I felt the obvious pressure and asked myself to focus and give my best. After a couple holes, I found out he is a nice guy, patiently waiting for us after driver because sometimes his ball was 50 yards longer than mine. He gave me some hands when i hit a nice ball, really a good encourager.
He tried my driver which everyone said it's a crappy one, hitting a better ball when using his own driver. "It is a nice driver, nothing wrong with it, only the difference who plays it", really verifying my thought that as long as you are good, you can swing any clubs.

We didn't speak much chinese in front of him for the purpose of being polite. And we focus more on playing then sharing experiences. Any how, I played much better than last a couple times. I pondered what made this time a little difference. A few things:

1) This guy helped to frame a relaxed, focused and friendly culture. He didn't speak too much, but he is a good encourager and a patient guy. This helped me to play a better game. Some how in our culture, we critize more than encourage. We don't want to praise others for doing something good, instead, we use others ways to treat others' achievement. We just don't have this culture habit to sincerely praise others. Another thing is we don't have patience. Everyone wants to be fast and complains others who are slow. While you playing with people in different level, you get to be patient. Many times, we are afraid of being slow because other people are chasing you, so we are forced rush ourself. Such psychology would mess up the rythsm and make you loosing your game totally.

2) He is really serious at playing, but quite relaxed. He didn't show emotions, just calm and composed. His game started to worsen a bit at 9th hole, he just said "I am loosing my game now". But thinking about us, we are quite emotional comparing to him. A good ball and bad ball could make our emotion up and down, with many reasons, ie. peer pressure, too much self critisism etc. That is in chinese culture and society, we became much more emotional than in the U.S.. We compared, we are eager to suceed, we think too much about face etc.

3) Believe in yourself. While we didn't share much experience, we played better. Why? we have to believe in ourself in this circumstances. We have to be independent. While sharing definitely is good, we have to understand that this game is talking about to forget what you have done for the last ball and focus on the next one. This game is about focus at playing while on the course. Too much things in brain will distract you.
This game is about believing in yourself while sharing with others. While there is disagrement, be the independent and critical thinker. Don't make any judgement before research, think and verify it.

4) Be real to yourself. There is nothing to hide and pretend on golf. You have to be honest on every detail which either you get it or don't get it. You have to be very clear on every check point while swinging, anything vague in your mind will cause problem at the end of the day.

5) Be the most forgiving person of yourself in the world. This is Tiger Wood's words. Don't beat yourself up. Praise yourself for every tiny improvement, and draw the lesson to better your game next time.

6) This game and life share many common traits: They are both a journey to discovery yourself, continuously overcome your weakness and become great.

7) Many times we want to have a quick fix by changing some external stuff, such as club equipment,or getting some tricks to lower the score. At the end of the day, such quick fix won't help much. What we are looked externally was reflected from our internal state, such as our confidence, capability and psychological stableness. So if you want to change, change internally first: Your clear understanding of swing mechanism, the feeling of solid hitting the ball, being able to grap details, and lastly consistancy. Your score will gradually improve if you improve internally on these things other than quick fix. In real life, it is very similar. We want to gain more and more skills, while forget that improvement internally is more important.

8)Emotionally detached. Being emotional could be the #1 killer of the game. Always remind yourself to be consciously detached from the result, focusing on the details and on improving your swing.

9) Know what to say and what not to say at the course. Always say "you have done well in this xxx , and could be better by doing that...", which shows your appreciation to your parther and being real to help him. Other than that, don't need to share too much of your feeling and experience;over doing so could be redundant and counter productive. In real life, we have got the similiar experience. Many times it is so sensitive to say too many things. So knowing what to say and what not to say becomes very critical in human relationships.

10) This game is about friendship. You not only get to give yourself the best to the game, and also know your partner's strength and weakness, so you know how to take care of his psychological need, while protecting yourself. Being over independent or being overly harmony-seeking would cause problem. Why saying that? In golf games, many people want to compete with you, even your best friends. When they win, they might unconsciously step on your ego. And when they loose, they might need some comforting. So you get to be very strong pschologically when you play badly, and to be simpathy when you are playing better than others. Such delicacy is hard to control in the game. And from it you can tell whether you are more mature or not. While knowing no one is perfect, you should always look at the good traits of your partner, and avoid to touch his weak and ugly spots. Thus, you can keep the interest to continue to keep the relationship with him, and would not want to change him.

11) Free of ego. This is the game that you can only play from well to great by being free of ego. Always looking for self-improvement, never being disturbed by others, never thinking of showing off in front of your partners, always focusing on details. While it is similar to being emtionally detached, it has more to do with forgetting about competion, face-saving etc.

12) Be a good observer and thinker. Before you hit a ball, have your mind's eye see what is going to happen with your swing first, then you know how your swing will be before it happens. It helped me a lot. It is called virtualization or meditation. This skill can apply in real life, which I used it and read it on books.