In just 18 days, I will be playing in the Women’s U.S. Open Qualifying tournament. It will be a daunting task as I will have to play 36 holes in one day in grueling heat. Today I played in a practice round at Sugar Mill Country Club where the tournament is taking place. It was a beautiful course, well-manicured and decorated with beautiful flowers.

I always love playing a course that is inspiring.  It is worth the investment of time, talent, and resources just to have a world class experience on a world class golf course. The real highlight of my high challenge, however, is not the dream of playing in the world’s most prestigious golf tournament.  For me it would be the second time around to do so. Rather, it is the pursuit of calling yourself up higher.  Today I realized that on this test of golf, I would have to call up my highest self —the champion within— to score big on this course.

Although the yardage for the tournament is marked around 6,500 yards, the course played much longer, about 6,800 yards.  A ridiculous length for women!  There was something about the challenge today, however, that was remarkable.  I kept asking myself, “How do I need to play this course in such a way as to win the prize? Not just to play and have fun as a senior player and most likely the oldest one in the crowd, but to really prepare to win and give myself the best chance?”

As I teed it up hole after hole, the answer came to me.  “I am going to play FULL OUT every shot for 36 holes.  This is going to require AN AGGRESSIVE TRUST IN MY SWING.”  “Aggressive trust,” I said to myself.  “I have never said those words before.”   What is an aggressive trust?

Webster’s Dictionary defines aggressive as “marked by a driving force of energy or initiative.”  “Trust” is defined as “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. One in which confidence is placed.”  In other words, I would have to play each shot with a strong force of energy with an assured reliance in the integrity of my swing.  Get that?  MY swing.

My swing has been the focus of so much lack of confidence, breakdown, insecurity, and lack of trust. Do you know how long I have made a concerted effort to find the power in my swing where I could have a consistent, repetitive swing?  Most of my golf life.  Uhh…that’s over 40 years.  More recently, a concerted diligent effort to end my golf swing misery—a dedicated effort of over 5 years to banish my swing faults.

About a year ago, I found a really great teacher who helped a lot. I saw a lot of promise in my swing. The problem is, I am currently in Florida and he is in North Carolina. With just a few weeks to my big competition, I had to find a swing-thought that worked for myself.  Did you hear that? I had to work it out on my own. I had to OWN my swing in order to find the solution.

I did. As I grew in my new-found confidence in my swing move, I am still honing it out. However, today, I had to let go of “playing it safe,” trust the work I have done on my swing, and just RIP IT.  I had to.  I had to TRUST MYSELF IN AN AGGRESSIVE WAY.  You know what?  It worked. It was a non-conscious move to consciously trust my game.  It was the ONLY way I knew I was going to have a chance. Each shot would need to be an all-out shot.

As I left the course, thinking about the STATE OF PLAY that my championship chances would require of me, I thought about the Body of Christ.  Yep. I thought about where God is wanting to take His people, how it is a SEASON OF ENTERING into the fullness of your calling. I thought about how there is only one way to fully enter something—all out—with an AGGRESSIVE TRUST.

A wonderful friend called me tonight asking for my feedback on an executive situation in her business. One of her top companies which produces the most income for her is not meeting her standards of integrity.  She asked me what she should do.  I asked her to consider not seeing the situation as a threat which only evokes negative emotions of fear, anxiety, and worry, which she admitted to having.  Rather, I challenged her to see the situation as a challenge which evokes positive emotions. “What would happen if you went into that conversation you are going to have with your client FROM a place of AGGRESSIVE TRUST in yourself? What if you decide to approach that conflict from the deepest place of your own integrity—not to run, but to call them up higher.  What if you didn’t move off of who you are but through being who you are, address the situation and then let the chips fall where they may? It all starts with how you see yourself.  Do you aggressively trust yourself?”  She got the point, was inspired, and left the call determined to swing into her meeting with an AGGRESSIVE TRUST in herself.

If we are going to fully enter into our calling in this season, we must call ourselves up higher, not to just trust in God.  In this season, God is calling us to aggressively trust in ourselves, take the swing full force, and leave the outcome to Him.  You see, everyone has a championship.  God wants YOU TO PLAY IN SUCH A WAY AS TO WIN yours.

The chances of my qualifying are slim in the natural.  I have learned to play FROM victory, however.  In my upcoming championship test, I have already won despite whatever score I shoot. I have tapped into my full out pursuit and potential.

Try it.  Go through your day today from a place of AGGRESSIVE TRUST in yourself. It’s time for you to play to win—and win!

I have always been fascinated by the spiritual side of performance.  While most people think that a competition is simply on a mental-physical plane, we are in reality four-part beings.  This past week I had the chance to experience the emotional-spiritual side of a championship. In this case, it was in the internal completion of a championship that happened almost 40 years ago.  I had no idea there was still something to be completed until I returned to my hometown where I lost my first major championship to the 7th ranked amateur in the United States, and some say it was done in an underhanded way by her.

I was a teenager at the time who had a fiery competitive spirit, but the West Penn Amateur was the most prestigious tournament in Western Pennsylvania at the time.  I had just beaten my biggest rival in junior golf in the semi-finals and now I had to face Judy Oliver III for the championship.  Yep, you heard me right.  The third.  She was the jet-set millionaire type that had everything and I was the pip-squeak who grew up on the other side of the tracks, until the back nine of the competition.

I was 1 up on her on the 14th hole.  She hit her drive out of bounds.  I hit mine slightly in the rough.  Then I hit a freaky shot out of bounds.  We both had a horrendous hole after playing great golf.  She accused me three times of having a higher score than I did when we reached the hole.  I was so afraid, being in the pressure of the moment, that I did not know how to respond, so I thought, “She must know what she is talking about. She is more experienced than I am.”  So I agreed, and conceded the hole.  Only problem was, she was wrong.  We were both on in the same number of strokes, but I gave away the hole because I listened to my opponent’s adamant voice, and ended up losing the tournament by a narrow margin.

The loss was traumatic, as I did not have anyone to help me process the intensity of a fully engaged heart, mind, and body in my competition.  When I got home, I was hoping my mom would console me. She was listening to the radio broadcast the tournament shot by shot and she was more devastated than I was. I ended up consoling her.  The next year I had totally forgotten to enter the tournament, as I psychologically blocked the whole competition out from my mind.

It took me years to process what had happened, and although I never though she had an evil intent in her actions, a lot of people did.  I always admired her, however, and was a bit envious that she had so many more advantages than I did.

When I went to my hometown to play in the U.S. Open Qualifier this past week, I had the chance to reminisce with a lot of people about my upbringing in golf and the people in it.  I asked my friend, Bob Ford, “How is Judy Oliver doing?”  He responded, “Not very well. She died about 12 years ago of cancer at age 54.”  I was stunned and saddened.  Then all of a sudden I also had another thought come to mind, “In the big picture of things, the playing field had been leveled.  I scored a win in the game of life in that I was still living.  I now have an opportunity she won’t ever have and that is I am alive—I am alive to play championship golf age an age that she never will.”  In that moment, I felt something deep inside me have a sense of full closure.  The book was now closed on a devastating first championship experience and how it laid the foundation for my competitive trajectory for years to come.  I didn’t even know there was still something there meant to be brought to closure, but I felt it deep within.  There was no longer a need to even think about that story because I was granted a win in life that surpassed my competitive loss.  I could go on, now fully cleared of that experience, and in a sense be restored to “competitive innocence.”

None of this was conscience to me until I heard of her loss.  Being an emotionally and spiritually aware person, I was saddened for her loss, stunned at the effect that experience still had deep within, and deeply grateful for the sense of closure and new perspective I gained to start a new era of play now from a fresh sense of advantage in my life.  I will always admire Judy Oliver for her life and legacy, and now I can get on with my own in a new way.

All competitions have to be emotionally completed or that energy will stay within you until you deal with it.  If I can help you in your competitive journey, please reach out to me at: veronica@truechampioncoaching.com.

With the thrill of the Opens now almost at a bygone simmer, I wonder what will forever remain etched in my memory upon reflection of the event as time moves on.  You see, winners come and go.  I found it amazing that Kaymer who won by an amazing ten shots failed to make the cut in his next tournament.  Wie bowed to Lewis who seized backed her champion position in her next event.  Isn’t it the nature of the game that what brings a thrill in one moment vanishes into the parched brown fairway to wither away in sports history oblivion in the next.

Every now and then, however, I meet a true champion, someone whose impact upon my life never fades away, even years after meeting that person. A true champion is someone who impresses you more about who they are than about what they score.  I met such a person in ten year old Alyssa Getty. Continue reading →