No Excuses

“One needs the mood of the warrior for every single act,” he said. “There is no power in a life that lacks this mood. Look at yourself. Everything offends and upsets you. You whine and complain and feel that everyone is making you dance to their tune. You are a leaf at the mercy of the wind. There is no power in your life. What an ugly feeling that must be!
“A warrior, on the other hand, is a hunter. He calculates everything. That’s control. But once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That’s abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions.”

 
I recall reading Carlos Castaneda’s epic “A Journey to Ixtlan” my junior year of college, my first year at Louisiana State U. after transferring from Wake Forest. According to NCAA rules I had to sit out a year before playing for LSU, and I found myself with quite a bit of extra time on my hands, especially considering I had injured myself while lifting weights and was unable to practice or play. I took Spring Break and headed to Arizona in my yellow Chevy Vega to see an old high school classmate I had convinced myself was destined to be the love of my life, in spite of the fact that I had not seen her in years and had never even dated her in the first place. The visit was destined to be a disaster, and, sure enough, when I overheard her professing her love to another guy over the phone I lit out for Baton Rouge with a heavy heart. Depressed and feeling oh-so-sorry for myself I drove across the mind-numbing, topologically challenged wasteland that is Texas, cueing up Joni Mitchell on the stereo as I attempted to make it the entire 15 hours in one shot.
 
I found myself too tired to continue, and being broke like most college juniors I decided to catch some sleep in the back seat of my (very small) car. The light of dawn woke me up, and after getting out of the car to reactivate my brain I took off down the highway. The last thing I remember was turning off the Eagles, and the next thing was being awakened again by a very loud crash, after which I found myself still inside my vehicle careening down an embankment at full speed. Somehow, and through no driving skill of my own, I came to a stop, the engine still running. I sat there for a long moment and assessed my situation, and decided that: a) I was still alive, and that b) it would be a good idea to get back up to the level of the road. I was about 20 feet below the level of the highway, and I could hear cars passing by, although I couldn’t see them, nor could they see me. . Shaken and relieved at the same time, I gunned the engine, aimed the car up the hill, and managed to snake my way back up to the side of the highway. At this point I got out of the car and retraced the path of the car back to where I had left the road, and saw that I had run directly over a reflecting post, obviously the noise that had woken me up. No more than 20 yards short of my exit point was a group of large trees quite close to the edge of the highway, and as I walked back to where I had ended up I saw that in another 50 yards there was an overpass with a large concrete bridge abutment waiting to stop the trajectory of anything that came at it. In other words, I had gotten very lucky. If I had left the road a second or two earlier or later I was toast. I took a few minutes on the shoulder to clear out my head, and then headed to the next exit to get a cup of coffee and contemplate my fate.
 
Why am I telling you this story? It so happens that in the front seat of my car was my copy of Castaneda’s book. I had almost finished it, and I did like it, but thinking back on it what he was saying would more than likely have had little lasting effect on my life were it not for this incident. As it was, my brush with death set off a light bulb in my head that has been lit ever since, and while I have not always followed Don Juan’s (the semi-mythical Indian sorcerer speaking to Carlos in the passage quoted above) philosophy to the letter I can honestly say that my personality and my approach to life has been affected more deeply by this piece of literature than any other.
 
As I thought about my state of mind before the narrowly averted accident I saw myself just as Don Juan described his young apprentice, Carlos. I was feeling like a “leaf at the mercy of the wind”. Nothing was working out. I couldn’t play golf because of my injury; I was lonely with no girlfriend at a new school far from home. I was wallowing, and things were getting worse. Now, however, I had been given a sign. In the book Don Juan speaks to Carlos on the subject of death:
 
“Death is our eternal companion”, Don Juan said with a most serious air. “It is always to our left, at an arm’s length.” “It has always been watching you. It always will until the day it taps you.” “The thing to do when you’re impatient,” he proceeded, “is to turn to your left and ask advice from your death. An immense amount of pettiness is dropped if your death makes a gesture to you, or if you catch a glimpse of it, or if you just have the feeling that your companion is there watching you.” “Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you’re about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. You’re death will tell you that you’re wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. You’re death will tell you, ‘I haven’t touched you yet.’”
 
What could have been more appropriate? The concept is simple: life is precious and not to taken for granted. Death could take us at any time. It is our responsibility to make the most of the time we have. Each moment would be best appreciated if we treated it as possibly our last. Whining and complaining are a monumental waste of time. Bemoaning our fate and our bad breaks is useless; if we are not moving in a positive direction we are missing something. Certainly there are times of grief and introspection when we must regroup and decide how to act. But those actions should always be such that we are getting better, that we are proactively moving toward healing, trying to figure out how to make something positive out of any situation.
 
I am often asked, when people learn of my struggles with back surgeries and other various injuries, how I manage to continue to succeed at my work as a teacher and as a player. I tell them how I have found a great trainer/therapist in Muscle Activation expert Charlie McMillin. I go through my daily regimen of waking up at 4:30 in the morning to do back exercises and work out. I don’t think much of it; I just have found what it takes for me to be good at what I do. Certainly not everyone needs to do what I do. My point is not that I am so disciplined and willful as to be unique and worthy of praise and accolades: I could care less if anyone knew what I was up to. It simply makes me feel better and helps me get where I want to be, in the winner’s circle. Rather than presenting an example that people can’t approach I would rather see it as “if I can do it, you can too.” It’s about finding what you need to make things the best for you.
 
For me the core sensibility of Castaneda’s book is toughness. It’s an unsentimental approach to life that I find refreshing in it’s biting simplicity. The giant sporting goods company Nike hit the nail on the head with its marketing campaign “Just Do It”. Recently the coach of the Miami Heat summed up his playoff philosophy with the slogan “No Excuses”. The idea is that in the end the winner tells of overcoming odds and doing what it takes to come out on top. Nobody cares why the loser lost. Any team or individual that finds itself dwelling on the reasons why things aren’t going well without coming up with a plan to turn things around is bound to end up on the short end of the stick.
 
There is no game more open to a current of excuses than golf. The game is so incredibly difficult that people with weak constitutions seem patently unable to cope with its rigors. There is a built in excuse for every shot, every round, and every tournament. The fairways were too long. The greens were bumpy. The rough was too long. The pins were unfair. It was too cold. It was too hot. It was too windy. My shafts are too whippy. My shafts are too stiff. I didn’t get enough sleep. My tee time was too early. I was too busy at work. I didn’t have time to practice. I didn’t have time to play. My caddy couldn’t read a green. Any of these reasons could certainly be justifiable, but a champion will make none of them. Knowing that as we try so hard to succeed failure is a distinct possibility, indeed even a probability, could be enough to dissuade us from the endeavor. I have always suggested to players and teachers alike that to be a true golfer one needs to compete, either in friendly matches or in tournaments, and that the results of the competition become the testing ground for any theories or methods that he or she has come up with. Our response to pressure focuses our subsequent practice; our search for improvement thus becomes far more efficient.
 
I am no fan of advocates of the idea that golf is predominately a mental game. Of course there is a benefit to being confident. Of course it is better to be relaxed than to be overly tense. However, what makes us confident, or relaxed? Does confidence breed success or does success breed confidence. I am certainly of the belief that without success, without a positive experience, there is no true reason to be confident. Confidence is earned, not manufactured. It is earned by executing well and achieving success in stressful situations. To my mind it is sound technique that is the foundation of the ability to come through under pressure, which is why I work relentlessly on my swing mechanics. After that the most important attribute a golfer needs to have is the ability to recover from negative results, be it a bad shot, a missed putt, or a bad hole. Bad stuff is going to happen: it’s almost a guarantee. Once you figure out that it’s better to stay positive and to try and figure out how to dig yourself out of the hole you put yourself into you are on the way to achieving better results. Golf is an objective game. In the end the only thing that matters is the score, and the club really doesn’t care how you feel about the shot when you hit it. If you want to believe that you can simply think about the target and swing and that will make the ball go there, or that if you pretend not to be nervous you won’t be, go right ahead. But you can bet that eventually you’ll be asking someone what they think about your swing, because if you don’t make a good swing, you’re not going to hit a good shot, whether you visualized it and committed to it or not.
 
A golfer simply must be tough. The game demands it. Make a double-come back with a birdie. Throw away a good round, come back with a better one. Lose a tournament on the last hole, birdie the last to win the next one. It’s no different in life. There are obstacles everywhere. There is tragedy, horrendous luck, and cruel turns of events. Our death would tell us that it has not tapped us yet. While we still have breath we need to figure out how the next battle will be won.

Join the forum discussion on this post