How to ruin your golf career? This article is not meant as a to-do list, but rather as a not-to-do list. If you dream of one day being a professional golf player, then heed the warnings in this article.
To become a professional golf player, there are many pitfalls to avoid if you wish to maximize your chances of making the cut. Many people are dreamers, but only a small few actually take action to go after what they want.
You need to work hard and smart and avoid bad decisions if you wish to become a professional. When it comes to sports performance, one bad decision can completely ruin the rest of your good decisions. Read the entire article if you are truly serious about becoming a professional golf player.
How To Ruin Your Golf Career?
Down below are some of the biggest mistakes you need to avoid in golf specifically. However, these pitfalls are applicable to life in general as well. Unfortunately, to maximize your chances of becoming a professional golf player, you need to make sacrifices.
People around you will look at you like you’re crazy, and even talk behind your back, but you know what you must do. It does not matter what others think, if you are aiming to become a professional because YOU wish to be a professional. Before spending your life getting better at golf, think deep within you whether you are training truly for yourself.
If you are training to become a professional to impress others, instead of doing it for yourself, you will likely live an unhappy life, even if you do become a professional. If your motivation to become a professional is truly for yourself, you will multiply tenfold your chances of making the cut. Down below, read closely some of the common pitfalls that cause talented golf prospects to lose their chance at being a professional. These pitfalls are all avoidable for most people. Remember, you have the choice to make a decision that will help you reach your goal, or one that will destroy your chances.
1. Not putting in the time
Becoming a professional at anything, including golf, requires a massive time investment. Playing golf only once a week is probably not going to turn you into a professional level golf player. You have surely heard of the saying:
“It takes 10,000 hours of focused action to become a master at any one skill”
This age-old paraphrase definitely holds a lot of truth to it. Depending on your talent level, it might take you only 8000 hours, or it might take you 20,000 hours, but mastery is something that comes with time. Ask PGA tour pros how much time they have practiced, and it is a guarantee that they have spent thousands upon thousands of hours.
You need to put in the time to practice all aspects of golf to become better. Bryson DeChambeau did not become one of the best driver hitters on the tour by only practicing putting. He is one of the best up-and-coming players because he practiced all aspects of golf, and on top of that, practiced his driving more than the average professional. Put in the work, put in the hours, put in the time, and your skills will vastly improve. Life is all about how you spend your time. The only sad thing is that you cannot become good at everything, for example, both at golf, and basketball. However, after reading the last sentence, you have the unique opportunity to become the best golfer of your age, while most other people are still stuck choosing which 5 sports they want to get good at.
2. Bad nutrition
What you put in your body, is what comes out. Eat trash, and your performance will be trash. These are blunt statements, but they hold immense truth. Ask any competent nutritionist, and they will tell you to eat healthy, eat enough protein, to have a balanced diet.
You can train in the gym 40 hours a week, but if you do not consume enough protein, you will not get muscle growth. Without extra muscle, you will have a hard time increasing your carry distance. You will put in work, with little return on your time and effort invested.
Good nutrition is one of the keys to maximizing the value of your training. Consuming a healthy athlete’s diet will result in giving your body the necessary building blocks to build your physique. As an illustrative metaphor, you want your bricks to be as strong as possible, but if you give your body pudding, your physique will not be very strong.
3. Bad sleep hygiene
Sleep is one of the most important things in an athlete’s development. During the night, while you sleep, your body uses the nutriments you provided it through your diet as building blocks to repair and strengthen your muscle tissues. Sleep is literally one of the processes through which you experience muscle growth allowing you to improve your carry distance.
Furthermore, your sleep refuels your brain and your mind. When you wake up after a short night of bad sleep, you feel groggy, want to close your eyes, your balance is off, your vision is blurry. With bad sleep, you simply are not putting yourself in a good position to perform well.
On the other hand, if your sleep is top notch, 8-9 hours every single night, at the same time every night, you will feel the difference. Every morning, you will feel more rested, more motivated, happier, and your muscles will grow over time, provided you train. Sleep is a non-negotiable aspect you must master if you are to become a dominant golf player. Practice bad sleeping habits, and you will be likely to ruin your golf career.
4. Injuries
We have already covered that not putting in the time to train is bad for an aspiring professional golf player, but the opposite can also be bad. In fact, some people are so motivated to train, that they will over train, and injure themselves.
Some minor injuries are not the end of the world, but it is possible to tear your biceps muscle, or injure your back. Major injuries like the latter two mentioned will be great roadblocks in your journey. On top of being downright painful, injuries mean you cannot train because you must heal, and that comes with a big opportunity cost.
By opportunity cost, we mean that, for example, if your injury takes 6 months to heal, you will lose 6 entire months of training. 6 months of training is nearly 1% of your entire lifetime. Know the value of time, and maximize the decisions that will give you the most useful time.
On top of the opportunity cost that comes with injuries, your body will deteriorate considerably during your injury. For example, if you tear your biceps, you cannot train it, and muscles that do not get trained regularly start to shrink. You will lose many pounds of muscle mass that you worked hard for, just because you trained too hard, and injured yourself. One bad injury at your prime can ruin your golf career.
Fortunately, once we have built muscle, even if we lose it, we experience something known as “muscle memory”. The first time you grow your muscles to sizes you had never previously reached, their structure changes slightly, a phenomenon known as muscle memory. If you stop training for a while, your muscles will shrink. However, when you start training again, it will be faster to grow your muscles back to their maximum size, thanks to muscle memory. Check out this article from Legion Athletics for more information on muscle memory.
To avoid injuries, you should sleep enough, eat a good diet, and stretch after a workout. In addition, when you start to feel significant pain in a limb, do not push through the pain. Your body is telling you “hey! I am hurting here! I need to take a break”! Listen to your body’s signals, and give it the rest it is asking for. Over time, as you get stronger, you will be able to increase the intensity of your training.
5. Drugs & Alcohol
Drugs & alcohol are some of the biggest dream killers, and robbers of happiness out there in the world. Unfortunately, many people go down the rabbit hole of consuming illicit substances to drown their pain, their inability to kick themselves into working towards their dreams, and more.
But not you. You are different. Avoid drugs & alcohol at all costs. Why would anyone rational and sane ever pay money to consume substances that damage their own body? It makes absolutely zero sense. But you, you are a rational person who knows what is best for them. One single drug use can be enough to ruin your golf career.
Therefore, if you wish to maximize your chances to become a professional golf player, you must NEVER consume any drugs nor alcohol. NEVER give into peer pressure. The truth is, most people on this earth do not know what in the world they are doing. Most people are clueless, feel lonely, and want to drag you into their bad habits. They want you to be sad and a loser too, so that they feel less lonely. However, you must learn to say NO when offered bad substances.
ALWAYS say NO to drugs & alcohol. Consuming an illicit substance just once can send you down a dark path you will regret forever. As a human to another human, I am telling you right now: do not take drugs or alcohol. Stay strong, do not give into peer pressure, and work towards your dreams while people call you crazy. If you have already tried drugs, STOP NOW. Do NOT let yourself go down this dark path any longer!
One day, you will find your path, hardened by your efforts and training, and you will look back to the people who tried to peer pressure you. You will look back, and see how far you have come, while they are still in the same sad, self-pitying state they were in years before. Trust the process, be kind to yourself, and only consume good things for you, like healthy foods.
6. Gambling & bad investments
It is no secret that golf is a fairly expensive sport to play, especially when you encompass gear, coaching & travel costs. To fund your golf playing and progress, you obviously need money, but there are some things that will rob you of your money, and indirectly, your ability to play golf.
One of those dark things is gambling. Suppose you have 10,000$ allocated for you to play and train golf. 10,000$ is a sizeable amount that could last you a good while. However, if you try gambling your money for some reason, you could lose it all, killing your joy related to golf, since you will no longer be able to fund your play.
An important thing to know is that with casinos, gambling games, and scams, the other party always has an edge over you. The games, the machines, the setups; they are all engineered to make you lose more than you win. You will get in a cycle of addiction once you start winning or losing money through gambling, and since you do not have the edge, you will lose all your money.
For the love of golf, if you are fortunate to have money to play and train golf, do not gamble. Simply, do not. You are in a good position, so take advantage of it. If you do not have much money, well then you should even less gamble. If you have an excess of money, you should still not gamble, because every tower only needs one crack to crumble to the ground.
7. Choosing the wrong social circle
Finally, the people you spend your time with eventually start to rub off you. You need to be selective with the people you let inside of your social circle, of your tribe. Favor honest, hard working people with positive mindsets. Avoid drug addicts, losers, hyper-aggressive, dishonest, manipulative, negative people.
You have two choices in life. Spend time with people who raise you up, creating a beautiful synergy of people who provide value to each other’s lives. Or, you can choose to spend time with bad people who will inevitably cause trouble and drama in your life, bringing nothing but excuses and negativity.
From experience and wisdom of the past philosophers, we can truly, genuinely, only recommend you to choose good people to spend time with. People who care about you and your well-being. People who make good decisions. Do not be afraid to slowly cut negative people out of your life. Find a solid group of people that will not ruin your golf career.
Conclusion
This article was a genuine plea from us to you to make good decisions in life. Life is about the decisions we make and where we spend our time. We want you to succeed if that is what you decided you want for yourself.
Read this article again, take notes, accept that these are things you must be aware of. When people will call you crazy, or boring, or insult you for being different, ignore them, and stay the course. Your journey is yours, and yours alone. No one else should have a say in what you decide you want for yourself. Do not ruin your golf career. Work hard. Be smart. Use your time well. We wish you nothing but the best.
Have you fallen in any of these traps? Overcome them? Share your thoughts with the other golfers in the comments! Let’s motivate each other to be great in whatever we pursue!
