Golf Philosophy-Lao Tzu

“Time is a created thing, to say I don’t have time, it’s like saying I don’t want to”

- Lau Tzu

Philosophy and mindfulness have been a natural interest for me since I was a little kid. I remember all sorts of corky thoughts I had as a kid about life. I’ll share one in particular. When I was about 10 years old, my family was going to visit my grandparents for vacation in our minivan. I was staring out of the sliding door window and saw the world as a bit of a simulation. It seemed so unreal that everything around me could be real. I was convinced that if I jumped out of the car, the only real part of the road would be the part that I hit, but of course I wouldn‘t test this theory because of a fear program. I know this sounds like The Matrix haha.

My story doesn’t connect directly to the quote above, but just gives you an idea of where my mind goes sometimes.

The quote does however address one of our most common excuses or reasons we don’t commit the necessary time to improve our skills. We create time for things we want to do, even the time we set aside to do nothing, is still time we created to do nothing, which is still something...

How can we desire creating more time for golf specifically, and why should we?

1) Join a golf league. Many players already do this but it’s a great motivator to practice. You also meet new people who love golf. The stronger the relationships we have, the higher our quality of life and motivation to work on our craft.

2) Join a club. Similar to a league, you would interact with others who love the game and have a consistent course and practice area to improve.

3) Family & Friends. You get a lot of quality time with people on the golf course. One of my personal goals is to have golf be something my son and I can share the rest of our lives.

4) Charity Outings. Throughout the golf season you can easily find many Scrambles to play in for good causes. You start to see some of the same people and it’s a lot of fun.

5) Tournaments. Regardless of your skill level, there are plenty of amateur tournaments you can play that are Flighted so you can compete with other players in your skill level.

These are just a few ideas to help encourage creating time for your golf game. Challenge yourself this week to spend 30 minutes chipping and putting at a local course. No pressure or need to improve. Just simply create and invest that time. Similar to the idea of saving money, it’s not as important the amount you save initially, it’s simply training yourself to do it. One day you’ll appreciate your efforts.