April 19, 2025

If there’s one way to guarantee low blog post readership, it’s to make it about golf. I can already hear my dad and my mother-in-law sighing as they read that first line. I have disappointed both of them. Again. You’d think they would be used to it by now. And yet, they still love me.

But onwards! Let’s talk about life lessons learned from last week’s Masters golf tournament, particularly with Rory McIlroy finally winning the Masters golf tournament, probably the highly renown golf tournament in the world. With a few exceptions, it’s a tournament only the best of the best have won. Jack Nicklaus won it six times. Tiger Woods five times. 

Rory should have won it at least once by now. Maybe several times. He’s been trying for eighteen years, and for the past fifteen years, he has been one of the best golfers on the planet. This post is not how to become a better golfer. Those of you who have played golf with me know that I’m not the person to give that advice. It’s about how to overcome all the things our mind does to keep us from being our best.

Almost every professional golfer these days, and most aspiring golfers, have a mental coach to help them succeed.  If you’ve made it to the PGA tour, you have the golf skills to win. But to actually win, your mind has to be in the right place. That’s why Rory brought in Dr. Bob Rotella, one of the most famous mental coaches of all time. Rotella’s 1995 book, Golf is Not a Game of Perfect, remains one of the most famous mental guides, and I believe it applies to far more than golf. 

Rory, one of the top two golfers on the planet right now, made time to talk with Dr. Bob every day before and after his round. He had little notes written in his yardage book that he re-read every two holes or so. And he needed all of it. Never has a golfer made as many double bogeys (that’s a bad score for a professional golfer) and still won the Masters. The whole world cringed as Rory was cruising to victory with a four-shot lead, then inexplicably hit his ball into the course’s famous creek, and ended up trailing as he reached the final holes. In the end, Rory prevailed. Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus made it seem easy, but for most mere mortals, winning is hard.

So what did Dr. Bob Rotella say to Rory that not only helped him, but might help all of us?

• “Love the challenge.” That’s how he signs all of his books. Golf is hard, life is hard, success is hard, relationships are hard, parenting is hard . . . you get the picture. If we don’t embrace the challenge, the challenge has the power to utterly destroy us.

• “It never happens the way we dream it up.” We all have plans for our success, but it is more important that we are able to adjust when obstacles inevitably arise. Rory did not plan on hitting that terrible shot into the water. Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Plans need to be constantly adjusted. The goal can remain the same, but it’s not a straight line as we strive to get there.

• Mistakes happen. Do not judge yourself. Move on.  Bob Rotella says, “You have to forgive and forget and be compassionate toward yourself.” You should see the things that golfers say out loud about themselves on the golf course. The names they call themselves. In Rotella’s book, he cites Mark Twain, who said, “The inability to forget is infinitely more devastating than the inability to remember.” And maybe Ted Lasso said it best: “Be a goldfish.” Why? It’s the happiest animal on the planet, because it has a ten second memory.  I think Dori in Finding Nemo may have had just a five-second memory. She may have been even happier. In other words, move on from your mistakes.

• And maybe my favorite quote, though Rotella is certainly not the first to say it: “None of us are going to get out of here alive. You might as well have some fun while you’re here.” We can all have goals, we can all aspire to be great, but we need to do our best to enjoy the ride, or at the very least, take moments where we enjoy the ride.

I don’t know what notes Rory wrote in his yardage book, but these are the types of notes I try to write in my calendar and on my to do list every day.

So congratulations to Rory McIlroy, and thank you for showing us how badly you can mess up and still end up winning. Thank you for having the humility to know that you cannot do it by yourself. And let his victory, and Dr. Bob Rotella’s wisdom, inspire all of us, not to play better golf, but to embrace our humanity and all the failures that come with it, to keep trying to reach for whatever brass ring we seek, and to enjoy ourselves along the way.

Post #131 on www.drmdmatthews.com

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NOTES

I add these notes sections for a number of reasons:

• First and foremost, many of you are crazy enough to read them.
• My posts are long enough, so believe it or not, I do try to limit them. Ideas that don’t make the cut can end up in the notes section.
• I include additional resources, links, stories, for those of you who want to go a little deeper.
• I may include something from the comments made in my last post, or something I learned in the process of writing this one.
• And remember, the posts are long enough – no one is making you read the notes. (Dad – If you are going to critique me for how long my posts are, please stop reading now. This is the optional part!)

Many of you know that my saying for each day is John Wooden’s, “Make each day a masterpiece.” It’s kind of the opposite of Rotella’s title, Golf is Not a Game of Perfect. I’m ok with that. Striving for being as perfect as possible is the goal, but accepting it when you inevitably fall short is the key to happiness, and according to Rotella, actually makes you better. 

The Yardage Book I mentioned is something that every golf pro carries in his back pocket. It contains a map of each hole, yardages from various points on the hold to the pin, and aiming points. And it’s made better by notes the caddie and the golfer write in it. Those notes could be lessons learned from previous times playing the course, or motivational notes like the ones Rory included from Rotella. I love that even the most talented people in the world need notes to remind them how to be their best. My friend Larry speaks about a “breath prayer” that can be repeated while slowing down and taking a deep breath. Brief meditational moments may provide that. Notes in a calendar that you look at frequently. It can help all of us.

The shot that Rory hit into the water was not a hard shot. It is a shot that I could have hit well 7 out of 10 times. And I’m not very good. But let’s be clear, when I play golf, no one is watching. If I were in Rory’s situation, with tens of thousands of people surrounding me, and millions watching on TV, and my career legacy on the line, there is no way in hell I could have hit that shot. I would have been lucky to hit the ball with my club. The pressure that the world’s best golfers and performers of all kinds handle is amazing.

About pressure, Bob Rotella said that failure under pressure comes when a person “lets anger, doubt, fear, or some other extraneous factor” affect them before the shot. It’s like mountain biking. Don’t look where you don’t want to go. Look only where you want to go. In golf, if you say to yourself, “Don’t hit in the water,” your brain does not hear the word, “Don’t.”

Mental coaches reached mainstream culture partially because of the outstanding movie, Tin Cup, featuring Kevin Costner, Cheech Marin, and Rene Russo. Great movie to watch or rewatch, whether or not you love golf.

So much of life is not letting negativity from your current situation, from yourself, and from others bring you down. We all face those challenges, and some days are far more difficult than others. And how we stay positive, and fight off that negativity, is all up to us.

I don’t know if I recommend Rotella’s book for non-golfers, but it is a classic. You can purchase it here.

Image from ChatGPT.