RESPONSIBILITY    

Many years ago, while having a conversation about why people played golf, I said that they liked the inherent responsibility of the game… you hit it there; you then hit it from there. That’s golf in a nutshell. The guy, who I was talking to, completely disagreed, but we disagreed about everything. He was a former GM of mine when my role was that of a golf pro.

This fellow was not a bad guy – we just saw life very differently. For example, he wanted all of our staff to learn each other’s roles. He announced that when he was in the theater, “Everyone learned each other’s roles, from the star to the spear-carrier.” Wow. So, I said, “That means our bookkeeper is going to learn how to give golf lessons, the F&B manager is going to be GM, that the grounds superintendent is going to run the kitchen, that the GM is going to run the grounds crew, and I’m going to be the bookkeeper.” That would have been a disaster. Each one of us was well suited for our jobs because of our natural abilities and desires. People are not blank slates. Training is beneficial for improvement, but training doesn’t innately change a person. If you’ve ever been a parent, you know what I mean… people are who they are at their core. However, they have free will. They are not robots.

Responsibility. This is where things get really interesting. Why did this GM not agree with my statement, “People played golf because they liked being responsible for their actions?” Because he did not believe that people ARE responsible for their actions, or even that people CAN be responsible for their actions.

One time he told me that he was going to get the golf operation to run like a Swiss watch. I replied that if that was his goal, he would go crazy and ruin the place. I said that he needed a staff of strong, independent people who could think on their feet; that he needed a FLEXIBLE operation that could deal with the constant changes of weather, customers, and unforeseen problems. The goal of a Swiss watch was not living in reality.

This fellow didn’t really like people. He would have much preferred a staff of robots. And customers??? He despised our customers… they weren’t perfect! I told him that he “loved humanity, but didn’t like people,” and that “I loved people, but was skeptical of humanity.” And 25 years later, I still feel the same way. I’m skeptical of humanity because I know that people aren’t perfect, and I love people individually because most people are trying their best – imperfect as they are.

This gets us back to responsibility. A lot of people are depressed. We all get blue. I get it. Fortunately, there is a cure. If you want to feel good, do good things. We all have the capability to do good things. That’s a big piece of being responsible. Irresponsible people do bad things because they want to get something or have an experience that they think will make them happy. It’d be like cheating in a golf tournament, you would win, but would you feel good about it?

Growing up is all about taking responsibility. Of course kids just want what they want. That’s why they have tantrums and yell and scream. They don’t come out of the womb as responsible adults. Hopefully as they get older, they start seeing that their actions have consequences. Where a society or family can go very wrong is when it rewards bad actions, or eliminates the consequences of bad actions. Sometimes this comes from well-intentioned people who don’t want someone to feel bad. But, feeling bad is a healthy reaction to doing something bad.

Playing golf is constantly dealing with your actions. You hit it there, go find it and hit it again. You are responsible for your shots. Do you sometimes get bad breaks? Yeah – deal with it like an adult.

I believe that golf can do more for the mental health than almost anything. A society is made up of individuals. The mental health of a society is the result of the mental health of the members of society – one individual at a time. Giving people what they want, will not solve society’s problems, unless you want a society of irresponsible spoiled children. But, if every member of society played golf and valued the inherent responsibility of the game, we might have a society of responsible people who feel good because they do good things.