What Golf & the Masters Tournament Can Teach Endurance Athletes - Coach Tip Tuesday

‍“Here's my idea for a sport: I knock a ball in a gopher hole.” -Robin Williams

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At first glance, golf and endurance sports look completely different.  They are both individual sports, but that might be the last similarity some folks see.  In golf, you are hitting a ball around a very large grassy area with the goal of hitting it into a very small hole very far away from your starting point, all the while seeking to avoid obstacles such as trees, sand traps, and water.  And then, you repeat this process not one, not two, but eighteen times.‍

Endurance sports such as running, triathlon, cycling, and open water swimming involve moving your own body around an area over a prescribed course and distance.  Instead of seeking a hole in the ground, you are seeking a finish line to cross. ‍

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia.  While I was at the Masters, I was struck by all of the many similarities that I observed between golf and endurance sports.  While there certainly are many differences between golf and endurance sports, there are many valuable lessons that endurance athletes can glean from both the sport of golf itself and the athletes who play it.‍

For anyone who doesn’t follow golf, the Masters Tournament is probably the most well-known and revered tournament in men’s professional golf.  The course at Augusta National is considered to be the most challenging, beautiful, and well-kept golf course in the world.  While both Augusta National and the Masters Tournament have been well-known and loved by golf enthusiasts pretty much since the tournament was first held in 1934, it became much more well-known to those who don’t follow golf when Tiger Woods won the tournament in 1997 at the age of 21, a feat that marked the beginning of one of the greatest careers in golf history.  ‍

Augusta National Golf Club is a private golf club that puts on the Masters Tournament.  And when I say it is a private golf club, I mean it is private.  Fences and shrubbery restrict the course and the grounds from being viewed by the public.  Only members and their guests are ever allowed to be on the grounds and to play the course, with one notable exception: the Masters Tournament.  For this one week - the first full week of April -  every year, professional golfers who qualify for the tournament have the opportunity to play the course and Augusta National opens its gates to the fortunate spectators (who are called “patrons” by Augusta National) who are able to secure tickets to the tournament.  In addition, while many golf clubs are classified as non-profits, Augusta National is not and as a for-profit entity, it is not required to disclose its financials.  It chooses not to disclose its membership list, the process of becoming a member, what it costs to be a member, the costs and revenues associated with the Masters Tournament, and more.‍

To have the opportunity to go “behind the curtain” (or the fence, in this case), to walk around and see the course, and to be present in-person for one of the most well-known sporting events in the world was something that I was genuinely excited about.  Augusta National takes a lot of pride in putting on one of the longest-standing tournaments in golf, and as such, they do everything they can to preserve the tradition and history associated with the game.  They have many rules that patrons must observe while they are on the property, but one of the biggest ways that they preserve the tradition and history of golf is by maintaining an extremely strict ban on cell phones and electronic devices, which helps maintain a distraction-free environment for both patrons and players.  If you’re caught with one, you will be ejected for the day and banned from the grounds for life.  And Augusta National practices what it preaches: The entire time I was on the grounds, I didn’t see a single cell phone.  No members had them, no players had them, no coaches had them, no journalists had them, and no employees had them.    

Masters Lesson #1: Presence

Since it started from the minute I left my car in the parking lot, this immersive aspect of the Masters experience was the first thing that I felt translates well into endurance sports.  I’ve talked before about how it’s worthwhile to reduce distractions while doing workouts, for both safety and performance reasons.  The fact that no one could have their phone or any smart device on me enabled me and everyone else there to be fully present while I was at the Masters.  Patrons had genuine, real conversations with each other that were not interrupted by people looking at their smart watches, no one was sitting in the middle of a grandstand scrolling through TikTok, and no one was “going live” or recording poor-quality videos that they’ll never watch in the future.  In short, every person at Augusta National was present, both to observe the athletes playing in the tournament and with the other humans around them.  They were experiencing the day with their own eyes (not through the lens of a phone) and by using all of their senses.  The athletes - who are also subject to this rule - were immersed in their game and with the experience of playing at Augusta National, which included being able to interact with the patrons around them.‍

While I am old enough to remember the world before the Internet (and might be among those young enough to do so), it’s literally been decades since I was at an event where people were not looking at their phones or distracted by some digital device.  People are increasingly keeping their phones on them at all times and/or connecting their phones to other devices to push notifications and calls through.  They are constantly recording videos, photos, and viewing media content (usually without headphones since the headphone jack was eliminated on most smartphones).  Very few people take the initiative to put their phones out of their sight, let alone out of their reach.  As a result, no one is actually fully present with each other anymore; there is always some other shiny object, notification ding or buzz, or breaking news that is pulling their attention away.  It’s become so commonplace to talk to someone who isn’t fully listening to me that I honestly have forgotten what it is like.  Thus, to be in an environment where presence was so thoughtfully cultivated and encouraged was so refreshing it felt like I was drinking water from a cool mountain spring.  ‍

Experiencing this amount of presence and seeing and feeling how positive it was reinforced my personal commitment to have my own workouts be spaces within my day that are separate from notifications and the Internet.  Additionally, it also reaffirmed my desire to continue to encourage other athletes to do the same.  By reducing distractions during our workouts, we can focus on the intent of the workout and on our execution of it.  By consistently doing this workout after workout, our overall performance will benefit.‍

Most of our lives are lived in arenas where we have access to the Internet and to others digitally and where others have that same level of access to us.  While we have told ourselves that story that this is all a good thing, the truth is that this level of connectedness is wearing on our mental health, our ability to focus (especially for a longer period of time), and it’s changing how we interact with others and even how we interact with and exist with ourselves.  I maintain that carving a bit of time every day to be away from this amount of connectedness can feel just as refreshing as my experience at the Masters did, and it’s something that I want others to experience as well.  Workouts provide a really nice opportunity for endurance athletes to do that.

Masters Lesson #2: Practice, Practice, Practice

The Masters Tournament is played Thursday-Sunday, but Monday-Wednesday are reserved as days for Practice Rounds.  On these days, the players who have qualified for the tournament go to the driving range, the practice greens, and out on the course to play it before the tournament officially begins.  The athletes who qualify for the Masters Tournament are literally the best golfers in the world and have achieved some of the highest levels of proficiency in the sport.  Yet they still practice every. single. day.  And they don’t just practice for a minute or two.  They spend the entire day practicing.  They are constantly engaging with their craft so they can maintain the levels of proficiency that they have worked so hard to achieve.‍

This - a commitment to practice - is the second lesson that I feel translates well from golf to endurance sports.  I have coached athletes of all abilities, from the most novice of beginners to elite athletes who have stood on the top of national podiums.  Over the years, I have observed that a willingness to spend time on practicing skills and fundamentals is often what sets beginner and age-group athletes apart from high-level, elite, and professional athletes.  Age-group athletes tend to be resistant to spending time on skill work, mobility work, accessory work, and other fundamentals like stretching.  It’s often very challenging for me to convince athletes to consistently spend time doing a dynamic warm-up before a workout, mobility work  immediately following a workout, or to spend a significant percentage of their time doing drill or skill work mid-workout.  While part of this is almost certainly because age group athletes are time-limited and don’t want to be spending their valuable time on elements of endurance sports training that are less fun than “real” workouts, the athletes I’ve worked with - both age-group and elite - who have been the most successful have also been those who are most willing to spend time - and lots of it - on fundamentals and skills.‍

At the Masters, I watched professional golfers - aka athletes who have been playing their sport almost daily for decades - practice the same shot multiple times.  I watched them getting a feel for each green and practice putting for different hole placements that they might encounter in the tournament.  (The position of the hole on the green changes every day of the tournament.)  When they didn’t get something quite right, their caddies handed them additional golf balls and the athletes kept going at it until they were satisfied with what they were doing.  They practiced their drives, their chips, and their puts.  They practiced getting out of sand traps and they practiced dropping a ball to simulate what would happen if they hit their ball into a water hazard.  There literally wasn’t any situation that they were not practicing or seeking to prepare for.‍

Over the years, I’ve talked (perhaps ad nauseam) about how important it is for runners, triathletes, cyclists, open water swimmers, and all other endurance athletes to practice for the specificity that they will encounter on race day.  You will not be magically ready and prepared for something that you haven’t encountered before.  The only way to prepare for the adversity that you will inevitably encounter is to intentionally introduce discomfort and to practice hard - and often boring - things ahead of time.  Confidence and proficiency are qualities that are hard-earned through experience…and lots of it.  At the Masters, I saw a lot of confident, proficient athletes.  What I didn’t see were athletes who were arrogant enough to think that they didn’t need to or wouldn’t benefit from practicing the basics each day.

Masters Lesson #3: Persist & Endure

Perhaps the most universally recognizable lesson I took away from this year’s Masters Tournament happened on Sunday when Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy won the tournament in a sudden death playoff against England’s Justin Rose.  At 35 years old, Rory McIlroy has had a storied career in professional golf, and before Sunday, he had four major championship titles to his name.  He hadn’t, however, ever won the Masters Tournament.  When he did so, he became only the sixth golfer ever to achieve what is known as a Career Grand Slam - winning each of the four major golf championships - the Masters Tournament, the PGA Championship, The Open Championship, and the U.S. Open - over the course of his career.‍

Rory turned professional when he was 19 years old and won his last major championship in 2014 at the age of 25 when he won The Open Championship.  For 11 years, he has been chasing the opportunity to achieve the career grand slam.  The 2025 Masters Tournament was Rory’s 17th time playing in the tournament.  For 11 years, he had a goal to win another major golf tournament, and he had a more specific goal to win the Masters Tournament.  Despite not achieving any of these goals over the last 11 years, he kept working, kept practicing, and kept coming back to give it a go.  In other words: He endured.‍

The name of the game in endurance sports is to, well…endure.  More than any other player in this year’s Masters Tournament, Rory McIlroy persevered and endured.  Rory entered the final round of the tournament on Sunday in a position to win.  It was honestly looking like he would be able to do so handily until he got to the 13th hole, when he made a terrible shot (perhaps one of the worst shots of his career) and gave up his lead.  He didn't dwell on that, and by focusing on the next shot (versus ruminating over a shot that was already made), he was able to recover from this by having a couple of excellent shots on the 15th and 17th holes.  He was a single putt away from being the Masters Champion on the 18th green, when he choked.  He missed what could have been an “easy” putt to make, which tied him with Justin Rose and forced the sudden death playoff.  Rather than letting this rattle him, he once again focused on the task at-hand and made the putt that cemented him into golf history.‍

Persevering and enduring requires not giving up.  But saying “never give up” is honestly very easy.  What never giving up actually means is much harder to do and to live out.  Not giving up means responding to the situation you’re in, not reacting.  It means managing the experience you find yourself in.  Not the experience you wish you were having or the experience you expected to happen.  The experience that is actually happening right now.  If you find yourself in a place that you didn’t want or didn’t expect, not giving up means accepting what is happening and then deploying the appropriate tools to navigate it.  In short, it means playing the hand you were dealt like it was the one you wanted, even if that hand takes years to play through.‍

Rory is very aware of the amount of perseverance and endurance that it took for him to become a Masters Champion; it’s something he spoke directly to his daughter about in his speech at the Green Jacket Ceremony (aka the award ceremony): “[My family] knows the burden I’ve carried to come here every year and try and try and try again. [...]  Never give up on your dreams.  Never, ever give up on your dreams.  Keep coming back, keep working hard and if you put your mind to it, you can do anything.”  ‍

Sometimes it may seem like we’re not making any progress, let alone the progress we want to be making.  Sometimes we outright fail at achieving our goals.  Sometimes this happens for many years.  All of this can be frustrating…to say the least.  It is easy to fall into the trap of ruminating over what went wrong and lamenting about what might have been.  And for some, all of this is upsetting and frustrating enough that they give up and move on to other activities and goals.  But as Rory showed the world in this year’s Masters Tournament, such frustration can serve as deep motivation for us if we let it.  ‍

We can let disappointment and frustration serve as motivation to refine our approach, to return to practice, to focus on the next best thing we can do to keep seeking the pathway that will lead to our goals and our dreams.  All good things take time, and the fact that something is hard to attain is precisely what makes it worth chasing in the first place.  If it was something that happened after a minimal investment of time and effort, it wouldn’t feel significant or important at all.  The feeling of achieving something that you have spent years working toward and countless hours preparing for cannot be properly stated in words.  (However, if you go and watch Rory’s reaction to winning the Masters, you might just feel it.)

The Bottom Line

I had very high expectations before I headed to Augusta National.  I grew up watching the Masters Tournament with my dad, who is a good golfer in addition to being a golf enthusiast.  While I am an absolutely terrible golfer myself, as I’ve grown older, I’ve grown to appreciate so many things about the sport of golf.  The opportunity to go to the Masters with my family was something that I was genuinely very excited about, and the experience of being there honestly exceeded my expectations.  It is - by far - the best sporting event I’ve ever attended (and I’ve been to the Olympic Games).  There are so few opportunities in life that are like this - that exceed high expectations.  It’s a memory and an experience that I will treasure for the rest of my life.‍

Part of what made the Masters so special and wonderful was seeing the best golfers in the world practicing their craft.  Yes, I might in fact be a horrible golfer, so there wasn’t something I was directly learning about the sport of golf that I can practically apply in my own life.  However, I saw universal threads that are absolutely applicable to the larger worlds of sports and of life, and it’s these lessons that I can translate into my life as an endurance coach and athlete.  Endurance athletes might not chase a ball around open, grassy expanses seeking to hit it into a cup, but they do have the desire to achieve their goals and be the best versions of their athletic and personal selves.  While the specifics of how we go about this may be different from golfers, the core fundamentals of being present, practicing, and enduring are the same and it’s these lessons that have resonated with me most from both the sport of golf and the Masters Tournament.