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Those of us who’ve played golf a while might be caught rolling our eyes when paired with a brand-new player. I made sure not to do that when the new golfer happened to be my wife.
For years Lisa said she had too many other interests to be bothered with golf, but over time, her position began to soften. Once “not for me,” it progressed to “maybe one day” when our boys became players, before arriving recently at “I can’t, I have a lesson,” and keeping a spare FootJoy glove in her purse. That all of this happened without my prodding was a given—I sensed early the way to turn Lisa off from golf forever would be to routinely insist that she play. Instead, she was inspired by friends and the opportunity to connect with our teenage boys—and maybe even a little with me.
Through the spring and summer, as Lisa worked toward a goal of playing as a foursome on our family vacation, I anticipated being able to share my accumulated wisdom about the game with my wife. What I hadn’t counted on is how much more about golf I ended up learning from her.
Below, some valuable lessons from the newest golfer in our family.
1. Golf still fights a bad rap
The first lesson was provided before Lisa set foot on a course. On the morning of her first lesson at our town club, she asked me what she should wear. Our course is nice, but it’s not exactly Augusta National, so I said not to overthink it—I figured a pair of normal shorts and an athletic top would be fine. When I looked up next, however, Lisa was gone, only returning an hour later. She said she didn’t want to be wrong for fear of embarrassment, so she rushed to a store to buy a golf shirt and a pair of new shorts. For those who question if golf’s stuffy reputation is alive and well, this was an answer. If the wife of a Golf Digest editor is worried about “doing it wrong,” a sizable barrier must remain for those truly coming in cold.
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The Zen Buddhist concept of beginner’s mind describes approaching an endeavor openly and without preconceived expectations. With Lisa, no matter how much the game dominated dinner-time conversations, it was apparent everything was fresh terrain. She didn’t know which clubs were for what, or have the vocabulary to describe the difference between a green and a fringe. The best part is, she didn’t care. Most new golfers don’t need to be saddled by what they don’t know. They’ll have plenty of time to learn they hit their sand wedge heavy, or they hate cart-path only courses. They approach the game like a hike through the woods, new curiosities around every corner.
3. The game is the reward
I tend to get sucked into believing a golf experience hinges on how well I play, but Lisa’s rounds carry no such conditions. Her goal was to become enough of a golfer to play with her family, which meant even arriving at the first tee was a victory. Throughout our first round, she reflected gratitude—about the company and the setting, about the shots that went well, and even the ones that didn’t. Most avid golfers have higher expectations, but we too often succumb to self-pity at the first taste of adversity. New golfers are more likely to remember there are worse places to be.
The newest golfer in our family wore the biggest smile.
4. When in doubt, be an athlete
While still rough around the edges, Lisa at least had a foundation to build on from other sports, and I soon recognized elements of her swing I even envied for my own. One day after I filmed her on the range, I wanted to show her how well she shallowed the club on the downswing, but she waved me away. “I don’t really need to see it,” she said. Unlike me, she isn’t consumed with every micromovement of the swing, and is intent leaving room for athletic instincts. When she and her friends work with their teacher, they insist on information in manageable bites—the type of restraint most of us lack, and desperately need.
5. Your bad holes probably had plenty of good
We have two sons, one who plays in college and can shoot under par, and a younger one who sends the ball rocketing off the clubface into occasionally unexpected directions. I fall somewhere in the middle, but from a new golfer’s perspective, the gap between three experienced players is almost indiscernible. More telling than Lisa’s appreciation of our oldest son knocking a 9-iron approach to kick-in range is how she responded when our youngest launched a drive that caught a stray branch and knocked straight down. As he slumped his shoulders, she looked confused. “But you hit that SO well,” she said, which was irritating for our son to hear, but also true. Golfers tend to draw rigid lines between success and failure, yet new golfers illuminate the healthy space in between. After Lisa knocked her approach on the par-3 second hole to 25 feet, she was competitive enough to briefly lament the three putts needed from there. Then it was over. “But it was still a great shot,” she said.
For someone who had just started playing, she seemed to have figured out certain parts of golf well before me.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
