The time zone difference meant that even the usually most hardy of us European golf nerds couldn’t stay up to watch the nail biting final day of this year’s first golf major. I happened to wake up at 2:30am CET and caught a glimpse of my mobile phone flashing away. I thought I’d just quickly check the LPGA leaderboard and clear all my Twitter notifications before heading off back to sleep however, that was not to be.
A quick and blurred scroll was enough to see that my feed, usually filled with Brexit and project management insights, had been taken over by Christina Kim giving it large, Golf Digest’s Stina Stenberg retweeting someone’s comment with the response “Bite Me” and Tiger egging on Lexi. Tiger never says much on Twitter nowadays so I realised something was definitely afoot. Oh, and Beth Allen retweeting a “wanker” comment. She must have been steaming too. Things were hotting up on the West Coast swing.
As it transpired their irritation and anger was well-founded. Another LPGA golf major, another LPGA major cock-up. A rules infringement that had happened during round 3 was called out by a TV viewer (or “armchair weasel” as Golf Weekly’s Beth Ann Nichols so eloquently put it) on Lexi Thompson and she was fined with a two-stroke penalty for the infringement plus a further two-stroke penalty for signing an incorrect scorecard. She was informed of this by a self-confessed “sickened” tournament rules official between holes 12 and 13 and so she lost her lead with 6 holes to play, not that it made Lexi or anyone else feel any better knowing that the decision caused the LPGA’s stomach to churn.
Now, putting the rules brouhaha aside for a minute, what has intrigued and inspired me most is how well Lexi handled the situation from a resilience and self-leadership perspective. It is said that in order to lead others you need to know how to lead yourself. Self-leadership in challenging situations is what separates the wheat from the chaff. I see and observe leadership on a daily basis and I also see extremely competent people crumble and fall when opposed, challenged or faced with setbacks and failure, sometimes of their own doing and sometimes due to circumstances beyond their control. Imagine how you were at 22 years old and then being put through Lexi’s ordeal yesterday infront of thousands of spectators and many many more TV viewers worldwide. How would you have reacted? In the face of adversity you never really know how you’re going to react. If you are familiar with the Johari Window theory and its different “arenas” then you’ll know that there’s a hell of a lot going on inside of us that we don’t know about. When building and leading teams we need to be focused not only on competence but what makes ourselves and others tick. What makes people perform incomprehensible feats of brilliance under pressure, time constraints and uncertainty? Our “unknown arena” of conditioned behaviours, fears, capabilities and aptitudes needs to be uncovered, worked on and developed throughout life but can be subconsciously triggered by extreme situations. And for years I’ve claimed that golf is one of the best sports for personal development than any other I’ve come across (although I’m sure there are those who disagree!) It’s you against yourself and the natural elements. You have to train yourself to not be influenced by external “happenings”, by the crowds, your playing partner and even your caddy. But how to manage a situation whereby you have your dreams shattered by an external factor, so vindictive that it doesn’t bare contemplating, is something that no text book nor mental training program can ever prepare you for. You have to get out there and experience it.
I see it more and more that we live in a world where we have to manage risk, even avoid risk at all costs. Failure is deemed as negative; we don’t push ourselves for fear of what others might think. Lexi, suddenly facing a catastrophic turnaround of events, didn’t crumble but bounced back. As the tears of despair, shock and anger rolled down her face she kept on battling and somewhere from her deepest darkest unknown found the grit and determination to pull off birdie after birdie and claw herself back to a winnable situation. Week in, week out Lexi, like many other professional golfers, train hard to win but with the knowledge that the risk of failure is high. How many of us shelter ourselves and our kids from failures and from the unknowns? Seldom does such resilience-dampening behaviour lead to greatness or happiness, and many of us instead work very hard on our “facade arena” by hiding who we are, our known failures and weaknesses instead of trying to uncover the parts that we don’t know about.
Tough times don’t last, tough people do!
Cut to an earlier, less global event on Sunday evening when I was watching a Swedish TV show “Mästarnas Mästare” (Champions’ Champion). Different sporting Swedish celebrities battle it out during various grueling physical challenges, sometimes working as a team, sometimes alone, to hopefully win the Swedish TV title. Former Swedish golf champ Helen “Alfie” Alfredsson, undoubtedly one of the more entertaining characters the show has witnessed, is one of the contestants this season and they don’t get louder, tougher or more resilient than her. She’s the old-school generation of the “let’s-just-get-on-with-it” golfers like Laura Davies. They toughed it out on tour before all the glam and glory went mainstream. I can’t imagine their mums being at every tournament ready to dish out the hugs, although I may be wrong. During a dinner discussion, she asked the other contestants whether they thought that kids are mollycoddled nowadays, compared with the previous generation. I wondered why she asked the question and started thinking about mollycoddled Millennials. At 52 Helen, a self-confessed “badkruk” (Swedish for “doesn’t like swimming/bathing”) and who incidentally didn’t throw herself in Poppy’s Pond after her Nabisco Dinah Shore win at the same major event over 20 years ago, would soon be showing her grit and determination again, this time diving after a treasure chest anchored to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and eventually winning all her challenges to top the Mästarnas Mästare leaderboard. No moaning (at least not on camera!). She too just got on with it. Ironically enough, who was to know that only hours later a woman 30 years her junior was also about to show more resilience and determination than maybe 1000 so-called mollycoddled Millennials could ever have mustered up. No mollycoddling in sight. Lexi may have been bolstered by the support of her crowds and her caddy but anyone who knows golf knows how alone she was coming up the stretch. It was her and her alone who would make or break it. Helen dived down into the depths of the ocean and Lexi dived deep into herself to blast a shot within eagle distance of the 18th pin and hold it all together mentally. Resilience is not the privilege of the older generation.
The resilience and self-leadership that Lexi Thompson displayed will I hope be the talk of the town amongst the next generation of girl golfers and not the rules fiasco. Resilience is something that should be instilled in our kids at an early age. They will be our leaders, our pro golfers, our inspiration. Don’t get me wrong, it’s ok to get the wind knocked out of your sails, it’s fine to go running to your mum for a hug and support when the going gets tough, but how you react to events around you or the actions of others is ultimately your responsibility and yours alone. Resilience can be learned and it can be learned through sport. And it’s reminded me and I’m many others that when the going gets tough in life, you can still pull off that one final shot. When my next failure comes, and it will, I will remember Lexi yesterday.
She’ll be back. So will I. So will you. And so will the LPGA in a week’s time for the LOTTE Championship on Hawaii!
1 comment
Great article Helen!
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