Research
As I started thinking what to write for my second blog post, I decided to do some research. Aaaaaannnddd you guessed it, I went straight to Eddie Pepperrell’s blog and read a couple of his first and latest posts.
I found myself thinking that I have admired him a bit for how he plays golf, considering he’s on tour and has won eeeeeeuuuuuhhh (that was me quickly googling the answer) twice!
Considering we have a similar golf game, I always tried to observe him when I saw him from time to time on tv and how he goes about his game. Now after researching his blog, you might find that in the future his style might start bleeding over into mine without copying the damn thing of course. 😜
Little’r Hesby
Okay now back to what I was actually going to write about: Little’r Hesby. For all of you who might not have gotten the hint Hesby is my nickname I got while attending boarding school during high school. “Little’r” is because, well I am still rather short, but back in the day I was tiny.
Like I promised in my first blog post, I will be writing about the defining moments in my career or as I call it my “aha-moments”. These experiences are the reason why I think I can play at the highest level.
The first aha-moment I had as a junior golfer was, when I played the “Ternesse Junior Open”.
I had been playing nationally for a couple of years in the category under 14, but never really contended to win up until that event. I shot a 3 over 75 as a 13 year old at a time when I was about 9 or 10 handicap. At that time it felt like I shot 64 looking at it from a nowadays perspective. Going into the second round I was leading by at least 3 or 4 shots and I was going to play with Pierre-Alexis Rolland. Who at the time was one of the guys that was winning on a regular basis.
During this second round I pretty much had my first experience with “choking”.😂
I couldn’t get anything going my way and I saw my lead evaporate into thin air. Long story short, I’m on the tee box of the 18th hole, that is or was a par 5 at the time and I’m tied for the lead. P-A looks confident to wrap this thing up ‘cause the entire round I was playing tense and holding back trying not to make any mistake. -Btw this is a recurring theme in my game throughout my entire career-
Standing there thinking that I might lose this tournament, something I have been wanting to do for quite a while and I might again fall short off. For some reason, and here’s my second aha-moment in my career, my competitive nature within me surges and just refuses to give up and I start telling myself “I will die before I lose to this kid” or something along that. -Btw “this kid” was obviously taller than me and was and still is one of my best friends 😉.- I used this determination to pick myself up and made everything really easy for myself. Telling myself to make this hole as simple as possible and I don’t care how I do it but I’m winning this!!
Fast forwarding to the third shot, we’re both about 50 or 60 meters away from the green. Using that same energy I managed to hit it to about 1 meter from the cup. P-A hits also a good shot but it ends up to about 4 or 5 meters. He just misses it and I remember trembling above my putt but still having that same resolve. I managed to summon the necessary courage from that resolve to just hit the putt where I wanted to, instead of steering the putt towards the hole. I made my putt and won my first national junior event.
Now some of you might be thinking: “well that’s a cute story but what has an under 14 event have to do with being able to play at the highest level?”. The point is I mainly learned 2 lessons from that tournament that still to this day give me the confidence why I can perform at a high level.
First of all, I can go low when I’m on. Shooting low is crucial if you want to be a successful pro golfer or golfer in general. Some people have this ability more naturally as others but in any case you need this skill. And YES, If you were wondering, it is something that can be learned. 🙂
Secondly, I can come through in the clutch, meaning when the situation forces me to perform, I don’t back off… I become resilient and start playing better. My mindset shifts to “I will do whatever it takes but I will make that crucial shot that people think I will never make!” Now again some of you are going to say, “Well Hesby, I remember you missing that crucial putt or that crucial shot” and yeah of course in golf I have had my fair share of “choking” but who hasn’t?! Maybe not Woods, but we’re still not sure he’s human. 😜 Only difference is, I have learned from those moments and I have never let those moments define me.
Up until these days, I still remember moments like these where I learned crucial things about myself and still let those moments fuel me to push me to the next level! 💪
Thanks for reading my blog and again let me know what your thoughts and feelings were about this blog post. If you ever had a similar experience, please share it with me in the comments section. 🙂
Happy Corona Blogging! 😉
Hesby