Stay In It

It’s funny, I never used to have a problem with sport crossing over the lines of any of the other worlds I inhabited. I always felt like they were the same world – that was a central tenant to how I lived my life. I studied English in college, while doing a minor in Political Studies, while competing at the highest level of NCAA and international amateur golf. I lived 5000 miles away from home, while dealing with the tumultuous inner struggle of growing up. I did all those things at the same time, so then, and in the years after I turned professional, it made no sense to me to ever try and separate those worlds. I wanted to show that you didn’t have to lose parts of yourself to fit in somewhere, or try and be something you weren’t to fit in somewhere else. I was the same person in all of them.

I still am now. But like a lot of people, I’m more tired. The world – whichever one you’re trying to exist in at any given time – is exhausting. It’s an onslaught of negativity and opinion and divisiveness, where one misstep can send you over a cliff edge. The right step at the wrong time or in the wrong room or in the wrong shoes can do the exact same. That’s true for a career in which you’re trying to be the best version of yourself you possibly can, and it’s true for ever hitting send on a tweet or instagram post.I’ve had a quote in my twitter bio for as long as I can remember, that says “leave people better than you found them.” I don’t know when the world became somewhere where leaving is less draining than finding. Doing anything outside of loving your family and friends feels like a minefield. A beautiful and rewarding minefield at times, I’ll happily admit, but a minefield just the same.

When I qualified for my first US Open, I was less than a year out of college. It was on a Trump course in Trump’s first year as president, which attracted a huge amount of political attention. I was unknowingly confronted with some of that on a radio preview show. It wasn’t the first or last time I was angry and restless before a golf tournament for reasons that had nothing to do with golf, which some people will tell you would be unhelpful and potentially detrimental to my performance. I’d tell you my performance that week had everything to do with being way out of my depth than judging which of Trump’s comments were sexist or not. Ironically (or not), my golf performance has worsened the more removed I’ve been from any kind of social media engagement; be it political, or critical, or hopeful. Whether my golf has reflected my weariness of the world or my weariness of the world has reflected my golf, I’m not sure. Maybe they’re not connected at all. There are reasons for why things have been difficult for me, and for the purpose of this they don’t really matter. The only thing that matters is that you have reasons to believe the things that you do. When it comes to my golf, I have a fierce determination that is finally lifting me up, rather than being something I’m clinging to. Because for the first time in a long time, it’s coming from my soul… and that might be too deep, but it’s me. It’s something I recognise again.

Is it a coincidence that I’m really looking forward to watching the Solheim over the next few days? Is it a coincidence I really enjoyed watching some of the golf at Royal County Down today? I think the fact that I’m writing this, regardless of who reads it or if anyone responds to it, is maybe more telling than the previous two observations. I don’t write as much anymore because it doesn’t feel the same. Whether that comes from me or the world outside of me I don’t know. But even if finding people is harder than it used to be, I’m reminded that I still want to leave them better off. Hopefully how I bring that across all the different lines of all our different worlds might just become a little bit clearer again.