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My story originally appears on PGA.com on 5/2/22
On Sunday, Marina Alex won the LPGA’s Palos Verdes Championship for her second win on Tour. Her final round 66 was highlighted by a two-putt birdie on the par-5 16th and helped hold off world #1 Jin Young Ko.
“The hard work has paid off; I wasn’t sure if this would ever happen again…if I’m being perfectly honest. The competition is really, really difficult. I just didn’t know if my mind and body were going to put me back in a position that I was going to be able to do it again. Today was the day.”
Many times, as fans of the PGA and LPGA Tour’s, we tend to believe that the players are generally playing the game at their peak. We may think that because of God given talent, these Tour stars have things coming easy to them. Sure, they practice a lot, but they are just gifted…right?
More often than not, we find that this is quite the contrary. Yes, these golfers are talented, but the majority are fighting injuries, doubt, or a variety of other struggles that make them more like us than they are different.
Where players like Marina Alex excel is in their commitment to a process and working a plan to reach certain goals that they set for themselves. If there ever was a “secret sauce” in golf, it is in this fact.
To improve your game, you must have a plan to create a pathway to reach the goals you set for yourself. You must work on those things deliberately and diligently but you must also remember to have fun with it while doing it.
As a PGA coach it is my job to encourage and educate you, to help you to stay committed, for long stretches, so you can see the desired results you want to. For many, this may indeed sound like that dirty word: Work. My job, and the job of other PGA coaches, is to show you that it doesn’t have to be work if the process is properly structured.
We will all have outside factors that will play into our plan…injury, doubt, or other factors, but as is the case with Marina Alex, or any other successful LPGA and PGA Tour Professionals, you recognize that these things will happen, and you stay true to the process and continue to work your plan. That is the “secret sauce” to success in golf.
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