I have a friend who loves to remind me that attitude is everything in life.  He’s right, of course.  Look around you.  It’s not hard to identify what separates happy and successful people from the rest of the world; it’s their attitude.

            I can’t think of anything that tests your attitude like golf.  Bob Rotella, the sports psychologist, has written several best-selling books about how a good attitude will enable you to play your best golf.  I’ve read all of them.  I’ve listened to tapes.  I’ve attended lectures.

            You see, I’ve spent my life fighting golf.  More accurately, I’ve spent my life fighting a bad attitude that has kept me from playing better golf.  More importantly, though, it has kept me from enjoying golf.

            I’m 51 now, and I’m in the slow and painful process of finally turning the corner on my attitude.  If you were to ask me what has helped me to improve my attitude at long last, I suppose it’s fatigue.  I’ve finally grown tired of fighting the game, mad when I’m playing bad and fear-filled when I’m playing good, worried that it won’t last.

            Little things tell me I’m getting better.  Playing in a tournament recently, I was having a mediocre day, making stupid bogeys.  I was starting to feel sorry for myself when I realized that, regardless of how badly I had played the last hole, I could still have fun on the very next hole.  And I did, making a birdie.  That good attitude stuff, it works.

            One thing that has helped is to reminisce about my childhood days playing the game.  I have reminded myself of the pure joy I once experienced at just being out on the golf course.  Booting up those memories has refreshed them in my mind, and I try to approach the game the same way now that I did way back when I bought my golf balls out of the used “water ball” barrel in the pro shop.  (Man, it was fun to dig through that barrel in search of the odd “Titleist” that was in near-mint condition.  Otherwise, I was back to playing PoDos or Blue Dots.)

            I’m sure that passing fifty years of age has had something to do with it.  I’m more aware now than ever that life doesn’t last forever, and so neither will golf.  If I don’t learn to enjoy golf with the game I have, I never will enjoy it.  It’s like the comedian says, “If 50 is middle-aged, how come I don’t know more 100-year olds?”

            So I’ve decided that maybe it’s finally time to grow up.  Instead of pissing and moaning about every bad shot, I’ll try to look forward to the challenge of playing the next shot.  I know that sounds pretty obvious, especially when you’re playing a game.  But, believe me, this ain’t a rational process.  It’s not so much about thinking bad; it’s about feeling bad.

            Golf is an emotional game.  As Bobby Jones once said, golf is a game of considerable passion, “either of the explosive type, or that which burns inwardly and sears the soul.”  If the man who is regarded by some as the greatest ever to play the game thinks that golf “sears the soul,” what must it do to mere mortals like you and me?