Golf and Skiing

One of my favorite sayings I use while caddying actually comes from a good friend of mine who is a ski instructor at Vail/Beaver Creek in Colorado. "Improvement, not perfection," Frank says to his clients who are trying to rip down the slopes, but aren't quite ready yet.

Vail 2009, The Golfmeister is lounging in the middle.

I find this line also translates well to caddying. "Improvement, not perfection." I tell my golfers after a bad swing or two. In golf, clearly nobody, not even Tiger, is able to hit every shot perfectly. And clearly in amateur golf, everybody hits poor shots, which is why I explain to my players, the goal is not to hit every shot perfectly, but to improve slightly every time you tee it up, and every time you swing. If amateur golfers would focus on trying to hit each shot just a little bit better than the last, rather than focusing on the imperfections in their swings, everyone would have more fun and I'm sure scores would go down as people would stop trying to pull 3-wood from 5 inch rough, and instead find a way to get the ball back in the fairway and improve their chances of hitting it in on the next shot.

On my most recent trip to Beaver Creek to ski with Frankie (today was actually my last of 7 days on the mountain with him) I taught him a new line... Known as the first 3 rules of caddying: "Show up. Keep up. And shut up!" He is already using it to heard groups of skiers around the mountain in search of fresh powder!