Business Lessons from a Golf Tournament

I recently watched a video of golfer Padraig Harrington’s 2007 win of the 136th Open Championship in Scotland. In the video, Harrington credits his win partly to his caddy’s encouragement in the face of his despair, and partly to shifting his mindset during the tournament. There are two important lessons we entrepreneurs and business leaders can derive from Harrington’s experience.

Harrington was in the lead going into the last hole, but he hit his drive into a water hazard. He took a one-stroke-penalty and dropped his ball to hit his second shot, which landed in another water hazard. In the video, Harrington says that he essentially started giving up at that point and succumbed to the idea that he was going to lose. His caddy, Ronan Flood, offered encouragement despite what appeared to be an inevitable loss. Flood didn’t let Harrington give up. He did exactly what any team member should do: be supportive, offer advice, and persevere even though Harrington wasn’t listening to him.

As a result of Flood’s encouragement, Harrington finally had a mindset change. Instead of giving up, he employed something we talk about all the time: outcome management. He decided then and there that he could and would win—and that’s exactly what he did. So, what are the valuable lessons here that are relevant to business success? 

When we are faced with adversity and challenges in our businesses, we have a number of options to consider, even when it seems like we don’t. First, it’s important to have a solid leadership team in place who can offer support, like Flood did for Harrington. We can decide to listen to their perspective or simply shut down. And, we can decide to change our mindset to focus on solutions and winning. 

I encourage all of us to choose to win by listening to our caddies and making up our minds to overcome whatever obstacles we are facing.

What experiences have you had in working through a down-time? What techniques did you employ to help you recover and move past challenges that faced you? Feel free to comment below.