Live Under Par.

This week I feel like I could sleep on the curb like those guys we see blacked out by the side of the road. I often wonder how they sleep deeper than some of us in our warm beds. It’s like I’ve swallowed a tsetse fly and sleep is haunting me. My colleagues and I who put the Magical Kenya Open golf championship together have been working long intense days for the last two weeks.

I’ve enjoyed being part of this great golf extravaganza and though tiring I find it rewarding to do this for my country. This year was extra special because we held for the first time in Kenya (and Africa) the G4D (golf for good) tournament where golf professionals with disabilities compete globally.

Watching those guys play at this level was inspiring but also made me question myself. I am a fully able-bodied man who has played golf for many years yet these G4D guys are playing world-class golf. I wondered if the disability was in my mind and my game reflected it. Folks maybe when we fail to use our abilities fully they become disabilities in one way or another. Idle capacity doesn’t do well.

One of the players (but from the main Magical Kenya Open) who came second was 29-year-old Englishman Joe Dean from the UK. He is a part-time delivery guy for a supermarket there. He won 170,000 dollars from his good play at the tournament held at Muthaiga Golf Club. That’s a pretty penny. Golf takes a lot of one’s time and more so when playing at the professional level. It’s a full-time job. I remember the legend Tiger Woods saying that he would hit 1000 golf balls every morning. Now that’s a lot of golf balls and a lot of grit too.

Joe is a delivery guy and makes time to practice and play good golf. Of course, it’s our needs that drive us to work. He has missed previous opportunities to play because he didn’t have the money to travel for similar tournaments. To many of us, the money shortage thing has become our largest disability, especially in our minds. I have fallen into that trap many times sometimes to the point where it stifles my creativity. Dean has challenged me sufficiently. It’s all in the mind folks. We are told that everything rises and falls with leadership. I’d add leadership of the mind specifically, for what we focus on expands. Leadership is the deployment of self into our circumstances, said Benjamin Kamoye. We do that and we will win some huge life tournaments, just as Joe did last week.

We have dreams and desires which are still bolted in the drawers of our minds because we have disabilities of one kind or another that are not necessarily physical and easy to see. Some of these are self-doubts, past traumas that we continuously struggle with and just life distractions that get us out of focus. Jade Bonacolta says that if we spend 100 hours a year (just 18 minutes a day) working on something, we will become better than the 95% of people doing it. We end up becoming the expert on that one thing and that is bound to bring success. Consistency is what makes the difference. And that’s what the G4D and Kenya open golf pros displayed last week at Muthaiga.

Why should someone whose life has more odds than mine do better than me? I know the best competition is with oneself. But I couldn’t help questioning if I have idle capacity in me that I need to tap into. I have to identify and confront whatever disabilities I may be carrying with me and rise above them, or at least use them to my advantage without taking advantage of others.

Golf is a game that reflects life and maybe that is why we can pick so many parallels. You get lucky breaks from bad shots and unlucky outcomes from good shots.  But at the end of the round how we finish is more important than how we start. That’s what determines the winner. Many start strong and then fall back along the way. There are exceptions though. Like in the case of this year’s Kenya Open winner, Van Driel who led from start to finish over the four days. We could say this year’s Open was his lucky break.

In golf, we are encouraged to play against the course not other players. And that’s the same in life. We should compete against ourselves and not with others. We often forget the marking scheme is different for each of us. May we be careful not to revise for someone else’s exam. We are allowed to learn from others but not to try and be them.

Playing better than the course layout is called playing under par and those numbers are in red. If you play mediocre golf (like me he he) then it’s above par meaning you’ve played more shots than the ones required of the golf course setup. Those numbers are in black as it’s above par. Simply put the higher the black number (or plus) the worse the golf and the higher the red (or minus) numbers the better the score. And that’s the end of our golf lesson for today. Check your inbox for homework hehe.

Folks, if our life circumstances are the course we are dealt then may we seek to play it under par so that we finish strong and win the game. Oh and keep your phone off while playing so you can focus ok hehe.