Golf Is Not A Game Of Perfect (1995) - Dr. Bob Rotella

Golf, what a cruel and seductive temptress ye be. If you know the god-like feeling of smashing a 250-yard drive down the fairways of Portugal, you likely also know the utter despair of hitting a wedge 6 yards in the winter bog of grey old England. For anyone who has ever attempted any level of sustained participation in this horror-sport, they will understand the agony and ecstasy involved in one simple round. And thankfully, this book exists to try and make sense of it all.

You see, there are activities that are difficult. There are activities that are exceedingly difficult. Then there is golf - an activity that some people dedicate their entire lives to and still manage to shank it in the trees with alarming regularity. In fact, such are the fine margins involved in the game that the greatest player to ever pick up a club, one Tiger Woods, only won 22% of the tournaments he played in and the difference in average score between first and 500th place in the PGA rankings is 3.5 strokes (!). So, suffice to say that golf is hard. But then so is life, which is the point that Dr. Bob Rotella makes quite assuredly here.

Admittedly, most people who explore this work will likely pick it up with the sole intent of improving their golf game. However, from as early as the introduction, it becomes clear that Dr. Bob has no intention of talking you through swing planes, or shoulder alignment, or the shape of your cack-handed follow-through. Instead, this entire book is devoted to what goes on between the ears - arguably the most important tool not only in golf, but in any sport and, it could reasonably be argued, in just about everything else too. In fact, if you substitute the word 'golf' with whatever word is appropriate to your life, there are an awful lot of applicable lessons to be gained from these here pages.

“A golfer has to learn to enjoy the process of striving to improve. That process, not the end result, enriches life.”

In a number of respects, Rotella's various musings on the mental requirements involved in improving one's golf game make for quite a Buddhist reading experience. There are so many passages about acceptance, calm, trust, and letting go that you could just as easily be reading something penned by the Dalai Llama himself. Of course, you'd probably need at least a marginal interest in the actual sport of golf to begin with, but even without that there is much to enjoy and learn from. As a sort of self-help guide it works as well, if not better, than many other offerings in that genre.

For example the book's title, taken from the full quote from one of the inside chapters - "Golf is not a game of perfect. It's a game of managing imperfection.” Couldn't that philosophy be immediately applied to anyone's life? Aren't we all continuously learning to let go, to adjust when things don't go the way we want them to, to master the art of somehow staying calm in the storm? Whether you're a high-flying CEO, a street sweeper or simply just a being on this planet, there will always be occasions which test our mettle, there will always be occasions where things go better than you could've imagined, moments where you feel untouchable, moments where it all goes completely wrong and you can't work out why. How we deal with these moments is what makes us who we are, and who we desire to be. It's almost a lesson in stoicism similar to Marcus Aurelius' world-famous 'Meditations'.

This might all seem quite high-concept for a game which involves largely middle-aged white blokes knocking a little white ball around a park. but that is the level this book is operating on. Yes, it's technically about a sport and sport might be considered something of a triviality in terms of life's grander machinations. That is certainly one point of view to be considered. But golf, to the golfer him or herself, is so much more than that. You could even argue that it is the ultimate mental test. It's just you, a club, a ball and whatever is going on in your head at the time. But even if you're not a golfer, by taking a wider perspective into this book you might find yourself less desiring to go and smack some balls around your local pitch and putt, and possibly more in a reflective state of being about the challenges you might face in the old game of life itself.

“People by and large become what they think about themselves.”

Golf is difficult, yes. It's very very difficult. Near impossible to do regularly to a high level. But so are many tasks in life and what makes difficult endeavours meaningful are the lessons they teach us. So, if you are in any way interested in the mind-state it might take to not only be a professional sports person, but a professional human being, then you might find the effort of reading this book highly rewarding. For golf fans, it is an absolute must. It will almost certainly get you thinking about the game differently and you'd be hard pushed not to find some valuable or salient point which could lead to improvement. For everyone else, it is still full of practical advice, packaged in a relatively simple way, that pulls no punches when determining who is responsible for your life and therefore your place in it (spoiler alert, it's you). All of which makes for a highly satisfying and somewhat enlightening read.

For a sport that has been described as "a long walk spoiled" or "a quiet frustrating puzzle played across changing landscapes", you might need a friendly voice in the ear on occasion and Mr. Rory McIlroy himself consulted the very pages of this book (and Dr. Bob himself) on the sweet road to winning the Grand Slam (all 4 major PGA Tournaments won - a task so difficult that only 6 people in history have ever achieved it). So as sage advice goes this is probably an excellent place to start. And even if the beautiful game isn't your thing, by approaching the lessons in these pages in more metaphorical terms, you might find yourself pleasantly surprised by the seemingly endless wisdom it has to offer.

★★★☆☆

JB.