GOLF

The Tournament Players Championship is referred to as the “5th major” on the PGA Tour and it was much fun to attend multiple practice rounds along with the competition rounds.

Local Phil Canders visited with one of his grandchildren, Maggie Leatherman. I think it was his granddaughter Maggie, although we were in text contact, it was so crowded we never actually met face to face.

Irmo High school class of 1979 graduate Randolph Smith and Steve Jacobs were both in attendance. I actually enjoyed Grant Thornton’s hospitality in their corporate booth on the ninth & 18th holes. It was the only way to clearly view Tiger, Phil, and Jordan on Thursday and Friday.

Incidentally, Tiger is back, and looks like he is at full throttle, completely healed. He only needs to be a little more comfortable with the “competition juices” and it could be his best stretch yet.

That’s right. If he is able to continue to compete, pain free, he will win fluidly. This means often and I should have capitalized “IF”.

Webb and Wesley

Webb Simpson blew everyone away from the opening round, eventually winning by six shots. Every now and then, the right person wins.

He is a great representative for not just golf, but also mankind. The graduate of Wake Forest is one of the most humble and giving people I have ever met. He gives in the form of his time and resources and he truly cares. He is sincere about doing what he can do to improve the world

Wesley and John Rahm got the week started with trick shots on Tuesday with F2. What I know is this aspect of golf is important after being at one of the trickiest venues in the world.

TPC is so tricky, that it out-tricked Wesley, who is actually called a trick shot artist, because Wesley missed the cut by one shot. His 144 even par was still pretty good despite the fact he missed the cut.

Wesley continued to play really well despite what the scores reflect. There is a delicate and fine line between great golf and not so great. Each golfer has their set of strengths and weaknesses. Wesley’s strength is his ability to heal up and move forward. He plays the course and the tournament as if he were playing a game.

It’s a game that is meant to be played for fun, recreation, and entertainment. So within minutes of signing his scorecard, he was enjoying his friends and family at dinner, laughing and going on as he would if he was leading the event or attending a football game at Williams Brice.

Without realizing the outcome of the TPC, Wesley’a reaction to amazingly bad bounces, breaks, and scores fits perfectly into last week’s start of “playing perspective.”

Playing perspective

I’ve had the privilege the last couple of years to closely watch, observe, study, have meals with, speak in person consistently, on a day to day basis, with the greatest players, teachers, coaches, sports psychologists, fitness trainers, equipment technicians, managers, agents and even family members.

There is one common denominator each of these individuals have that gets my attention like a flashing light - the achiever’s perspective along with attitudinal mindset.

If I were to start at the player and move horizontally or vertically, it is fresh, new, and cleaned daily throughout the entire culture unlike anything I have ever witnessed. Per individual in every camp, the mindset, attitude, of the player and each individual is upbeat, positive, and enthusiastic about the possibilities of this moment.

Every day is a new day to reinvent and be the best yet. Many are quiet with words but loud with body language. It’s quite inspiring and uplifting to observe the width and depth joyous optimism on the PGA Tour. Negativity and pessimism does exist somewhere but it has been hard for me to find.

The beautiful news for all those hanging in with this article through this point is anyone can have a good mindset and perspective. Anyone. Mindset and perspective can be a learned skill.

Mental Recycling

In closing, I was noticing the trash cans at TPC as I was leaving the event. They were labeled “Trash”, “Plastic & Cans”, “Recycle”. I got to thinking that in golf, we have to do a lot of mental mindset recycling, refreshing, and in the coming weeks, my intention is to focus on how to keep the mindset fresh, and new daily.

This is the biggest obvious difference in my opinion between the greatest players and the rest. The best are refreshed quickly, while the rest seem slower, sluggish or even oblivious to the concept. More next week.