Sometimes you’re faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges where you have the choice of either sitting back and not even bothering or saying “what the hell” and give it a shot. My golf club here in Sweden, not unlike many others, has several challenges ahead and one of them is getting more younger girls and women involved more actively and positively in the club. I specifically say positively because for many years there has been a plaintiff atmosphere that has contributed to a whinging instead of a can-do culture. I too have done my fair share of whinging, mostly due to frustration at the lack of any plans, despite knowing how counterproductive it is. For a multitude of reasons we’ve managed to lose 250 juniors as well as our elite teams over the last ten years. Unsurprisingly the club also has a reputation of being an “old folks home – golf edition” (although this perception is slowly changing at a snails pace rate) This year I was asked to join club’s steering committee and was put forward because the club manager and pro thought that I could contribute to the club’s growth and progress. I was and am very honored but am not ignorant of our seemingly insurmountable challenges, one of which is trying to find positive contributors younger than myself who have an interest in and experience of golf.
So cut to last summer when it was the annual SM Klubblag (Swedish Club Team Championship) tournament. The last time my club put forward a ladies elite team was 10 years ago. Yes you heard correct, TEN years ago. Last year a few male members and our pro managed to scramble together the low handicapped guys to form a team for the men’s event. I didn’t find out about this until they’d been there, done that and got the club logo t-shirt. They didn’t think about a ladies team, it couldn’t have been further from their minds….but I’ve already chewed the fat over that, which in part spurred me to somehow try and get a ladies team together for the 2017 tournament. Where are the girls? It’s Vision50/50 for Swedish golf this year and, despite our club not actively participating in the Swedish Golf Federation’s project to get more women into golf, I figured that it shouldn’t stop us from trying to get an elite team together. Like I said: “insurmountable challenges“. I was suddenly faced with the equivalent of a plugged bunker shot and tight pin scenario with only a putter in my hand.
But hey, I love a challenge.
If you look around hard enough and use some creativity you will find something you can grasp and hold on to.
Take aim
Despite being a project manager and being used to working with and leading teams of different capabilities, skills and competence levels, I’ve never been team captain of a sports team, and I’ve certainly never been a golf coach! However, with nothing to work with except for my own two hands and 20yrs of leadership experience I took the bull by the horns as self-proclaimed team captain of one. Where to start? I did have one weapon of choice – a strategic mind of rather unspectacular proportions. But nevertheless I’m good at strategy and planning. I knew that it would be foolish to aim my “shot” at the tight pin. Instead I decided that knocking the ball out sideways into the rough would be good enough as well as humanly possible for our local, homely golf club with ambitions somewhat above its station.
Engage
The long-term vision is to have a young elite team up and running and winning titles within 10 yrs but that was not the message I would initially go out with to the ladies I was about to ask to join the team. Admittedly I was afraid of frightening them off or that they wouldn’t feel they had a good enough level of golf to represent the club’s elite team. All I could promise was that I would help us get the ball from the bunker into the rough, which basically meant participating in the tournament and just getting a team together. I hoped and prayed the short-term vision and goal would be enough to get them into the bunker with me. I knew we had a few former juniors in their late 20s and early 30s who were more or less passive members. A quick trawl through the members register revealed a rather substantial amount of <10hcp female members some of whom I had no idea existed. One of them, Johanna, turned out to be a former member of the elite team 10-15 years earlier and she was elated that someone from the club had called her. I also knew that we have some fantastic older members also playing off low handicaps. Would they be interested?
In February I sent off a mail to all eight ladies inviting them to join me as part of an elite squad to take to the annual SM Klubblag tournament hosted by Kävlinge GC near Lund. Five said yes immediately and the other three were happy to be ICE reserves (In Case of Emergency!) Dancing elatedly around the room I was mentally high-fiving myself when reality dragged me back down to earth.
I’m still in the bunker with a plugged ball and putter.
I now needed a strategy to get us on to the green. We needed a plan. Where to begin? Oh lordy me, I hadn’t got a clue.
Fire
Executing a golf shot demands 3 things: focus, purpose and confidence. I had the first two components for this ambitious endeavour but am not too proud to admit that I was unusually lacking in confidence. Why the hell should they follow me? How should I plan the team strategy? The tournament was to be played over two days and I had to pair together players that I knew very little about in foursomes and best balls, four of which had already expressed doubts about their suitability for the team as well as letting the club down.
I had a few options. Should I:
- Pair them together so that everyone would get the chance to play (after all it’s the participation and not the result that counts, right?)
- Pair the best players and hope that they deliver, relieving the pressure off the higher handicapped players, but forcing them to play 2 rounds per day and perform in every round meaning that some would only play one match (go for the result!)
I was honest with the team in how I was planning the strategy and wanted their feedback and thoughts. What did they want to achieve? I of course wanted us to do as well as possible but I was still mindful of the performance pressure on them and that they were afraid of letting each other down. However, to my surprise they saw no reason as to why we shouldn’t go for option 2. “Why enter a tournament if we’re not in it to win it” was the general consensus and so we set ourselves an achievable goal:
To not come last and to beat our neighbouring rival club Woodlands GC.
For the next few weeks I set up a simple training program and sessions focusing on our short game. I’m not qualified to teach swing methods but I did have short game drills that I use myself when training. The main goal, however, was to get to know each other a bit better so that we would feel comfortable playing with each other on the course and to relieve the worry about letting each other down. As we trained in the summer evenings other club members would come by and jokingly laugh at us “oldies” trying to get a team together but they were impressed at our consequential training program and stubbornness of character! But most of all they looked up to us as a leading example.
Nerves were high on the way down to Kävlinge GC that day. It was a very early start for all of us and on arrival we were met by hoards of young, energetic, elite-level girls with smooth swings, kitted out in full team attire (we didn’t have any team outfits and turned up in our own logo shirts (if we had them)) To say we were the underdogs would be understatement of the year! On the first tee Johanna and I, the two lowest handicapped players, looked at each other and high-fived. It was all or nothing for both of us who played all 4 matches in different constellations with Em, Eva, Agneta and Åsa. When they weren’t playing we agreed that they caddied for those who were and it created a great atmosphere in the different groupings. It also relaxed a very nervous Em who wasn’t used to these kind of tournaments at all.
To cut a long story short the strategy worked. We didn’t come last and we beat Woodlands. Johanna was the team hero, especially in the singles matches, but being someone who puts high expectations on herself she wasn’t happy with her own performance. I hugged her as she left the 18th green on the Sunday, tired and worn out, but she’d ensured that we achieved a better result than what we’d initially aimed for.
On our way home in the car we were upbeat and pleased with our result. As we were dissecting and discussing our shots in minute detail Em said from out of nowhere, “Next year I won’t be as nervous and we’ll climb even further up the results table”. I almost swerved the car as I felt a warm glow of pride rise up at her comment. She was already mentally preparing herself for next year. A smile had returned to Johanna’s face too. And Agneta, Eva and Åsa skipped home, happy to be of service to us “young’uns” and having a fun weekend with the group.
It’s now 2018 and it’s time to start getting ready for this year’s tournament. The junior girls are also another year older and another year closer to being able to be part of the ladies elite squad. We’ve given them something to aim towards and it’s the first step on the ladder towards our 10 year vision. I’m glad I took that first step last year. It’s been more successful than I ever would have imagined.
My leadership motto is nothing more flamboyant or simpler than Ghandi’s immortal words: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world”. If someone has to take the first step, why not let it be you?
