The Rogers News

Category: Golf

  • Passion & Sacrifice

    I played golf with a friend the other day and it reminded me of how passionate I used to be about anything that had to do with the game of golf. I played every chance I got, I worked at a golf store, I researched, tested and bought new clubs. While many of my peers seemed to have a modest interest in the game, looking back I feel that it consumed me in both good and bad ways.

    It’s been my belief that you have to forget about a lot of things to excel at one thing. There is a metaphor for success that involves a stove top with four burners. To excel in any one area, one must shut off two of their burners. The burners, which represent different areas of one’s life, are:

    • Work
    • Health
    • Family
    • Friends

    Looking back at certain times in my life, I’ve turned off or turned down different burners at different times.

    High School Golf

    Sacrifice: Golf being work, I turned down friends and family. Friends by choosing to hit golf balls on summer afternoons instead of beaching it with them. Family by creating a vacuum around me – time at the dinner table discussing my play, money spent on travel, lost work time, and mental anguish as I plodded my way around each course.

    Takeaway: Being great takes hard work, time, and sacrifices by those around you. I had a tremendous amount of support that I took for granted. Thinking about this now, I have a greater appreciation for the endurance required to be a parent.

    Ruckus

    Sacrifice: I turned off health. That’s really all I can admit to turning down, although, for the first time in my life, I was living in another state from my family and probably could have called/written/whatever more often. But this was a health sacrifice. I worked myself into the ground after five months, ended up with mononucleosis, and gained weight.

    Takeaway: It took until my second year in law school to give in to working out regularly and eating well (or at least better). Now when I overeat or eat too much junk, it pisses me off because I know I’m not doing what is right for my body. I’m sure we’ve all heard this before – that our bodies are holy sacred places. Who wants fast food in a place so dear?

    The point of all of this is that we make different sacrifices at different times in our lives. It’s healthy to recognize where we are lacking and that it’s impossible to keep four burners on high year after year. I’ve never been able to do it. What can be done is to seek moderation in all four areas, and be willing to sacrifice in any one area if necessary.

  • A Moment of Regret as a Leader

    For all of the great memories I have from playing golf in high school, there is a lingering moment of regret that I am reminded of each night before I fall asleep. On the wall of my bedroom is a framed display with a picture of me swinging a golf club, my scores from that year’s state finals tournament (73-80) and a list of the top ten finishers (I believe I finished tied for 5th with my co-captain, Casey Smits). The moment of regret comes not from the second day 80, although I wish I could have played better. Nor does it come from losing ground either as a team or as an individual on the second day of competition – sometimes you just don’t have your best game when you need it. I played my heart out both days and have no complaints about my play.

    What I regret is not speaking to my four teammates between the first and second rounds. There are specific points I would have made to each individual teammate – forget that your dad is following you; you’ll be the leader next year, so be one today; reign in your temper because every stroke counts; etc. I would have also spoken to the team as a whole and told them that I was proud of them, we’ve won before, and that I knew we could do it again. At least that is what I imagine I would have said – something positive and encouraging. I was, after all, the co-captain.

    I vividly remember both holding my tongue at the team meeting the night before the final round and wishing that, when the tournament was over, I had spoken to the team the night before when I had the chance to. I’ll never know whether my words would have done anything, but it would have made me feel better about the outcome.

    It’s been ten years since the fall of my senior year of high school, and there’s always a little bit of me that wishes I could go back, if just for a moment, to tell my younger self to say what I was thinking. Going forward, when I’m in a leadership position, I’ll never again make the mistake of being quiet when I should say something.

  • Golf Course Development In China

    “All the Tees in China: The Chinese Go Golf Crazy” (Link) does not paint a good picture of the state of golf in China or the state of China in China. I could have told you this from personal observation. What I saw when I visited was a bustling culture, but it seemed like the wheels were turning fast and going nowhere. While the Chinese economy may be growing at dangerous rates…

    The economic slowdown means things are not as they were a couple of years ago, but China’s economy is still expected to expand by around 8 per cent a year.

    …the way of life for many of its people has not improved dramatically.

    With regard to both housing and golf, I saw little of either during my visit. I remember remarking at how few houses I saw -neither city type houses on a small lot nor larger country estates. I don’t know where everyone lived, but there were not many visible houses. This is why the golf course development strategy being employed in China is absurd:

    The primary motivation behind developing the game of golf in China is property, not bashing a little white ball around a course. Plush villas pay the green fees.

    What make money in most clubs are the villas and apartments ringing the courses. The golf itself is a loss leader, and many of the courses in China are chronically underutilized.

    In extreme cases, developers buy up large tracts of farmland on the outskirts of the boom towns of New China: Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Tianjin, Beijing and Shanghai. They then start building flashy villas – reasonably priced by UK standards but more than most Chinese families would earn in a lifetime. The courses are often an afterthought, hastily-constructed – even unplayable. The developers don’t care; they can charge a lot more for property near a course.

    Sometimes this land is taken illegally with the connivance of corrupt local officials, leading to social unrest as disenfranchised farmers take to the streets and demonstrate, attacking building sites and picketing government offices. China’s arable land is scarce, and the government is worried about a growing wealth gap between the rich of the cities and the poor in the countryside.

    Now that sounds like the China I know. Forget the growth, technological advances, and health improvements. It’s about ravaging the masses by taking arable land and replacing it with unaffordable developments that only an elite few can use. I want to know who buys the houses on the courses! Better yet, I want to see the courses and houses!

  • Spring Semster: Masters Week

    School is as busy as ever, but the end is in sight. I am preparing for a team negotiation in Copyright Licensing. My team is representing a website developer who has been contracted by a small toy company. The essence of the project is to negotiate and come to an agreement on the controlling contract.

    My final Judicial Opinion Drafting order is due one week from yesterday. I am writing as the Supreme Court of New Hampshire deciding whether the Superior Court erred in affirming a Department of Labor decision to award wages and liquidated damages to a peeved former employee who was denied her previous-year’s bonus when she left her job as an insurance agent with a small family insurance company for a larger insurance company. I’ll spend the weekend doing this, but at least I’ll be mostly done with one of my five classes.

    Nothing much else notable regarding school work. Four of five of my classes have take-home finals. Most of my exam weeks will be spent writing documents from home, which should be less stressful than the typical “cram-dump” exam routine.

    Barrister’s Ball is this weekend. I didn’t get tickets, and the only ones available are going for 100 to 200% above face value. It would be fun to go, but partaking in law-prom ranks quite low for me.

    Putting all of the work in perspective is my anticipation of The Masters broadcast this weekend. This is by far my favorite golf tournament of the year to watch on TV. I’m hoping Tiger Woods makes a run for the green jacket, but that the contest is close. Who do you think will win?

  • Catching On

    In looking at the PGA Tour website and familiarizing myself with the field, tee times and television broadcast times of the tournament that started yesterday it occurred to me that golf is boring to a non-golf fan because they haven’t caught on yet. They don’t have a favorite player. They don’t know whether the tournament is stroke play or match play. They may not even know if the tournament is a Major, one of the four most important tournaments to occur each year.

    Almost anything can be interesting if you know the subtext and are aware of the details. You’re enthusiasm can lack, but an intriguing side-story about golfers can be as exciting as one about basketball players, space, or whatever you are interested in. Further, taking the time to become aware of such a side-story is the critical thing I’m driving at. It’s only then, when you become aware enough of the universe surrounding the thing on which you are currently focusing, that you have a chance at overcoming your bias / lack of interest.

    You can write off golf as being boring or say that you can’t learn how to do math, but it’s not your interest or ability that is lacking. It’s your willingness to catch on.

  • High Pointe Is Closing

    Geoff Shackelford alerted me to this Traverse City Record-Eagle story about one of my favorite Traverse City-area golf courses, High Pointe Golf Club, is closing due to the poor economy. I grew up on that course playing tournaments while participating in the Traverse City Junior Golf Association. I had high school tryouts and tournaments there, and I played my first round of 2008 there with my dad.

    Big bummer to hear about.

  • Tiger Returns

    Tiger Woods returns to the PGA Tour today and tees off at 2:02p. I have been looking forward to his return for months. The PGA Tour is just not the same without him – either because he draws interest or people just want to be interested in him.

    From what I’ve seen and heard on the Golf Chanel and ESPN, it looks like he’s ready. The commentators are professing that they’ll be surprised if Woods doesn’t win. I feel the same way. Last time he took a break to fix the knee, he won… The 2008 U.S. Open! A couple years before that, when he took time to drain the knee, he returned and won at Torrey Pines.

    The choice to return in a match play tournament was a wise one. Match play is a different beast than stroke play. Unlike stroke play, match play allows you to have a bad hole and not have to dig your way out of it stroke by stroke. If Tiger is at all inconsistent, he’ll appreciate the chance to throw away a few holes. Further, unlike stroke play, match play is more emotional. Tiger can better scrap out a win against a feisty opponent. Finally, if Woods is ousted early he’ll be disappointed, but no to the degree of a missed cut.

    There’s a lot to watch for today at the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship. And when it’s done we’ll still get to look forward to Tiger’s stroke play debut. Bam. Bam. Boom!

    My bracket for this tournament.