Massive Update

Well since I haven't updated since October, maybe it's time for an update. A lot has changed since my trip to Phoenix. I had the awesome opportunity of having my boyfriend, best friend and best caddy along to help. He helped immensely. Always does. I can't even remember what I shot, but I felt like it was going to be a good warm up for Qschool the next week.

My time in Florida was awful. I have never felt so betrayed by golf and so awful on a golf course. I started out poorly and finished my first 18 holes with a +6/-1. Ha. How's that for starters? Well I took it with a grain of salt and was ready for the next day. Similar day. WTF. I felt like golf was turning on me. No matter how much I let it go, at the end of the round I still felt like shit. After my third round, and a missed cut, I was done. So ready to not feel like I was on an emotional roller coaster. So ready to not be on a golf course. I haven't felt that in a verrrrry long time. Every chapter has an end, and it really felt like this was the end of it.

I spent some much needed time with my sister who works at Disney World and got to experience the parks with her which was an absolute blast. I also got to spend some days with my old teammate which was amazing. We had some pretty crazy adventures which included watching kittens thrown out the window of a car and rescuing them. Eventually she fostered the thrown kitten. Wow.

After golf was over, I started to really feel life again. I have prayed immensely over this and really feel it is not the direction God has for me in my life. My summer was unforgettable and so valuable but God's purpose in my life does not lie in traveling the country along feeling empty. I didn't and still don't feel like me playing golf is benefiting anyone but myself and that guilt seems insurmountable. You can think what you want, maybe I have too much talent to stop playing, I know my work ethic could get me anywhere in this game but without the desire to become better and healthy ways to deal with guilt, and the stress of touring, I can't continue.

This post hasn't even addressed the issue of funding a year. It is too tough in this economy to ask people to donate to my dream. I know my dream is valuable, maybe it's not my dream anymore, but I will not continue in massive debt that this past year has put me in. I will forever be so grateful for the people that did help me along my way, I even invested a lot of my own savings, but I am still in the red and I refuse to continue that pattern being a young adult trying to make it in this society.

I just feel betrayed by golf. I have worked my whole life at this, thought I could make it on tour which a lot of people can't do, but turns out I can't. I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to check that off my list. To be able to live that dream and find out it's not for me. In the long run, and even now a little bit, I have come to terms that that is not in my journey anymore. This, however, does not mean that golf can't be a vessel to give back to the community, and in my free time, I will be doing just that. I have had SO many amazing opportunities from playing golf. From the places I have been to, all across North America, to the friends I have met, all across North America. I have met some of the most amazing people and met them in their own journey and it has been so memorable.

A part of me feels like it's dying and it's sad. It's hard to tell people about this but it's just another step in the journey. I have tons of other interests people have no clue because to all of them I am known as a golfer. It is not my identity and it never defined me. The intangibles of hard work, determination, focus, discipline have always defined me. Whatever the vessel is to showcase those traits doesn't define a person and if you get anything from this post take that.

Since my trip to Florida, I have accepted a position at a preschool academy and have been teaching 2year olds. It has been a great transition and I love working with them everyday. I have also been training for 5ks and 10ks, and set my personal records in the month of November. In the month of December I have basically been sick the entire month and had a lot of time to think and deal with all of this. It's been a struggle. It hasn't been easy, but what in life is?

Grinder

"I want to become a grinder. To us on tour, a grinder is a guy who doesn't give up, who keeps on keeping on, who plays hard and scratches for every par even when he doesn't have his A game. To us its a term of high respect. On the tour, its a badge of honor to be thought of as a grinder, as a guy who never, ever quits."
-John Daly

Result vs. Process

Awesome day in Colorado today! I was on the range by 9am! No frost, just a little sunshine to keep me company. It was fantastic. Hoping for some more days like today!

When I was working on the range today, I was thinking to myself that if people were watching the drill I was doing right now, they would be thinking to themselves, "what is she doing out there?", "might as well not hit balls". Haha. Well I just laugh to myself because those people are RESULT orientated.

Golf requires practice right? Yes. But why would you practice your strengths? That is what silences people when they criticize someone who isn't hitting it well or not making every putt, especially if they are a "pro". Well this was written with them in mind. If you have read any sort of mental game book they will tell you it is about how good your process is, not how good your result is. You can't control your result! Playing a game on natural surfaces might be one the most inconsistent and frustrating things about the game. However, it is what makes the game truly unique. It can cause a well executed golf shot to go wayward or end up in a hazard. That is simply why being mentally tough will get you to the highest level (along with some skill, no doubt).

So I'm there on the range doing my drill, and laughing at this phenomenon because you go to any proshop in America and there are guys playing cards or having a drink in the pub talking about this kind of stuff. But for any golfer it is not about your result it is about your process. So right now, as you might have guessed, I am working on my process. That's what is required of all good players that want to improve. Working on weaknesses and improving the process. The process is important. It saves you when your mind might be in an uncomfortable place. It has come through for guys down the stretch in majors on the PGA tour and the same with girls on the LPGA tour. Every good player knows that if you are in that unfamiliar territory your process/pre-shot routine will save you....if you have put in that work.

This was one of the hardest things for me to learn as a golfer in college. All I saw were results and before you have that mental turnaround, you are not going to play to your potential. Like I’ve said, I’ve seen it in almost every mental game book I’ve picked up but I don’t think it is emphasized enough. It’s a shame because when you have a round that is not result orientated, it’s so much easier to go out the next day and perform consistently if not better. Being process orientated will get you focusing on things that only you can control and that’s all you can do on the golf course. If you let yourself worry about things you can’t control, you might as well hang up the clubs and take up a new hobby.

For me, it is one of my goals to always stay with my process and perfect my process, not worry about my results.

Michael Jordan, one of the world's finest athletes in his day said, “I've always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come.” It is one of the most solid statements an athlete can hold on to because it’s true.