Golfing success is a life learning experience. You can learn a lot about life when you play golf. In particular, you can learn a lot about yourself from golf. If you cheat or blow up when things are not going your way, such as getting a bad break, you will most likely demonstrate similar behaviors in life. Therefore, golfing success reflects your life learning experience.

Life is a game, and so is golf. In life, you have twists and turns, and you just have to meander your way through; likewise, in golf, you also get good breaks as well as bad ones, and you just have to learn to deal with them. Golfing success mirrors your life learning experience.

Remember, you are very lucky indeed, if you can begin another day - not to mention that you can play on the green. So, accept the fact that during the day, you may have joys, disappointments, and surprises. Learn to accept what is being offered to you, and embrace the good as well as the bad. This is the way of Zen, and this is how you should play Zen golf, which brings about golfing success.

If you regard playing golf as a life learning experience, then you will learn and improve your sport. Golfing success is within your reach.

In golf as in life, to achieve anything, you need to set goals. For golfing success, set some smart learning goals. In golf, there is the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of your improvement comes from only 20 percent of what you have learned or improved. In other words, you don't need to know everything to attain golfing success. It is like driving a car - you meed to know the basics of driving, but you need not know how a car engine operates.

So, to improve your game for golfing success, focus on only a few major areas. Like living, if you worry about everything or worry too much, you will end up not enjoying your life at all. Living becomes stressful. Similarly, in golf, if you strive to analyze every situation, or worry too much about how to execute a stroke, analysis will become paralysis.

Get yourself a good address position. That is, you grip your club correctly. You maintain a good stance and proper posture. Then you turn away from the ball on your backswing that stores up energy. Finally, you release your stored-up energy with a good forward swing that propels the ball to the target. As Peter Thomson, a well-known golfer, said: "To play good golf all you have to do is grip it, turn it, and release it." Maybe Thomson made it too simple to be true. But maybe simplicity is the name of the game in golfing success.

But you become your own coach. As you continue to play, if you are mindful of your need to know and to learn the basics, you will improve your game. You will ultimately attain your golfing success.

Even a good instructor can do only so much: you have to learn on your own, especially how to master golfing techniques for golfing success. Naturally, a good instructor should tell you what to do and why you should do it in that particular manner. Then the instructor should be able to demonstrate to you how to do it properly. Finally, your instructor should allow you to "experience" the feel of that newly acquired technique.

Therefore, playing golf is always a life learning experience if you are made aware of what you need to do. After all, golf is a 80/20 game for golfing success.

Copyright (c) 2009 Stephen Lau