Great Approach

My father used to say to me that golf is 10 percent what happens to you and the other 90 percent is how you react to it. He probably read this in one of Norman Vincent Peals books on how best to deal with life. I believe this is what maturity gives you -- a gift for insight into a game that we all want to conquer.

As I look back on how I use to play this game -- a young man, who had the PGA Tour in the back of my mind as a top goal of all goals and evaluate it with how I play the game now -- I have to say that my heightened awareness of the 10 percent, 90 percent rule has been a great help to me with how I can simply get the ball around the golf course much better. Even on days where it seems difficult to find a swing, I can deal with that. My reactions to the game have drastically changed.

If you can think of yourself as a feeling, you are a physical body with a feeling. Here lies the insight of why we can be so affected by outside forces. How much of the stuff that gets inside is worth keeping? None of the stuff that gets to you should be allowed to take over your thoughts for any period of time. Learning how to hit the reset button does not come easy. Much of what I am making reference to is old habits gone bad. To reset yourself and dismiss the 90 percent bad reaction is your choice. Making the crossover will make a world of difference for your golf game and your life.

Years ago I worked as an instructor at the Presidio Golf Club in San Francisco, Calif. I will never forget how polite the enlisted soldiers would behave as they showed up to play golf. I once asked one of the soldiers, "Are you guys always so polite to people."

He told me that they don't get many days off and they were trained not to ruin them by getting into arguments with anyone. They were trained to look past it and focus on the better of every situation. Being a believer in God I thought this was pretty interesting stuff. Life as golf is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you choose to react to it.

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Bill Bondaruk is a PGA Class A member. After traveling the mini tours, Bondaruk taught for a few world-renowned golf schools, including John Jacobs, Jim McLean and Scott Sackett's Resort Golf. He was Director of Instruction at Arizona National and swing instructor for the University of Arizona men's and women's golf teams. He has worked with a list of tour professionals as well as collegiate stars.