Resilience Is the Signature of Greatness
Four Examples of Resilient College Golfers
- By Matt Thurmond
Recently David Puig traveled back to Madrid, Spain to play in his very first professional event, the Spanish Open. With all the country watching, David dazzled with his Seve-like slashing, missing many fairways, but scrapping his way to a score of 8-under, and finishing as the Low Amateur. He was honored in the awards ceremony with a large trophy, and stood alongside event champion, Rafa Cabrera-Bello. Pictures of this spread throughout our connected world and David Puig, already a star player, become a household name in Spain.
This is the same Second-Team All-American and top-ranked David Puig who several weeks before hit five balls OB in route to an 80 in the second round of the US Amateur, and the same David Puig who finished 6th in an eight-round intra-squad qualifier to start the season that resulted in him missing the first team event for his Arizona State Men’s Golf team.
I’ve seen this pattern repeated many times in my coaching career. Often the greatest triumphs are preceded by the most painful defeats. Those who can maintain their self-belief in the difficult times, are able to turn the losses into material they use for future victories, a concept discussed in Angela Duckworth’s book Grit: The Power of Passion of Perseverance. This is a common behavior and trait of top performers.
After a good junior golf career that featured unhindered and steady improvement, Cameron Sisk joined our team in 2018 and in his first season became the Pac-12 Men’s Golf Freshmen of the Year. In his second year he improved steadily and became a Third Team All-American. We all expected his next year to be the best one yet. But it wasn’t. After a long COVID layoff, Cameron just wasn’t himself all spring of 2020. His signature accurate drives and iron shots were missing wide left and wide right, a sight he wasn’t accustomed to seeing. Cameron always worked hard and tried anything and everything he knew to fix his game, but nothing was working and he had the toughest slump of his young career. He never lost belief in himself, but he did feel a little lost and embarrassed at times.
Let’s fast forward now just four or five months later and watch (and many were watching on national tv!) that same Cameron Smith hit two absolutely perfect shots on the 18th Hole of Maridoe Golf Club to win the first college event of his season, and earn an exemption in to the PGA Tour Houston Open. Later that week it took a 175-yard hole out on Hole 18 for Austin Greaser to beat Cameron at the next big event and elite field at Olympia Fields. Then a near win at Isleworth followed and Cameron was the top-ranked college golfer and playing the best golf of his life.
Like David, Cameron used the losses and toughest times to fuel him, humble him, and sharpen him, to become better. People often say clichés like “what doesn’t kill you makes your stronger,” and “this will only make you better in the long run,” and these things can be true, for some people. The people that these things are true for are the ones who never quit believing that they will come out on top in the end. These people keep working hard even in the toughest times, and they use what they learn through pain and defeat, to sharpen their focus and skill for future triumphs. Often these resilient achievers are the best they’ve ever been shortly after feeling their lowest.
Nick Taylor suffered a crushing defeat after making an 8 on the par 3, 16th Hole in the final round of the 2009 NCAA Regional. I’ll never forget his head and hands in the towel sitting off the 18th green. The same club he hooked way left to cause the 10, was hit literally thousands of times at a driving range in the next two weeks, something no one knew until several months later. Just a couple weeks after this devastating defeat Nick won a US Open Qualifier, making birdie with that same 6-iron several times, and went on to be the Low Amateur at the US Open at Bethpage Black. This vaulted him to become the World #1 amateur golfer, which he maintained through the summer and earned the Ben Hogan and Mark McCormick Awards.
Chris Williams worked hard all winter of 2009, expecting to make a big impact with his Washington Huskies team in the Spring of 2010, but he missed another qualifying and had to stay home from the much-anticipated first team tournament in Hawaii. This was a deep low point for Chris, after all that hard work all winter, but he didn’t stop working (There was a timely phone call to Chris from team captain Nick Taylor that we may discuss in another post). Chris practiced deep into the night every day while the team was in Hawaii and when the next qualifying came, Chris won it and went on to play and win at Pelican Hills in the next event. He won again that Spring and finished in the top 10 in the Pac-10 Championship, NCAA Regionals, and the NCAA Championships, earning the National Freshmen of the Year Award as well as his first of four All-American honors.
I could give many more examples like these examples above. Jim Collins said that “resilience is the signature of greatness.” I watch many of the world’s best golfers very closely and all of them display and exceptional resilience in tough times, and often have their greatest triumphs shortly after their most devastating defeats.
References
Collins, Jim, and Morten T. Hansen. Great By Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All. Random House Business Book, 2011.
Duckworth, Angela. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. New York, NY: Scribner, 2016.
