Blog Post: Career Interview: Professional Golfer

Here is a video of the career interview, followed by a Q&A of questions that were submitted by Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter followers of Pursue the Passion

When you’re playing golf professionally, who are you competing against? The players around you? The course? Or yourself?

A lot of players when they are in the lead of a tournament play against the player they’re playing with. I could never play like that. When I’m playing golf, it’s just me and the course. Focusing on your game, on that one shot that you have in the moment, that’s the biggest competition you’ve got.

I think it extends on to business and life as well. You can focus on all the things going on around you. You have to focus on what you can do and what you want to happen, and let that be good enough.

Do you have a ritual, mental or physical, in preparation for taking a shot?

Yes. There’s two things I try to do to get my focus together and prepare myself for a golf shot. One is to see it. I step back and visualize what I want to happen. I see the ball landing and ending up in a certain place on the green. Or when I won my tournament on the LPGA, I saw the ball hitting the dirt at the back of the cup and dropping to the bottom. So I see it.

Next, I have to feel it. I have to take a step back from the ball, take a practice swing, and I have to feel what I just visualized. Then I’m prepared to take the shot.

How long into your career did it take you to identify that routine?

I’m still working on it.

Do you consider golf a job like a lot of 8-5ers? And do you ever get sick of playing?

When I was playing golf professionally, about 80-90% of my whole life was devoted to playing golf. That’s all I did. And it was my job. Where I finished in the field determined whether I was eating Taco Bell that night or treating myself to a steak dinner.

Later on in my career a lot of my friends on tour started retiring. I asked them when is the right time to retire, and they said you’d know the time when it came. And that was true. On morning I woke up in Canada, I went out and had breakfast by myself, played golf, had dinner by myself, and went to sleep. I woke up the next morning and I thought, ‘You know what? This just isn’t fun anymore.’ About a month later I retired and now I’m a golf instructor for Bird Golf Academy. Because when you’re playing golf for a living, you’re living out of a suitcase. You’re waking up on Monday morning and trying to figure out what city you’re in. I only play golf now when I get asked to, or when friends are coming in town. It’s just more fun.

What were you doing before you were on tour?

I started playing golf at a young age and was surrounded by the game. I remember being a young girl and pointing at the TV and proclaiming I was going to be a professional golfer. I got a scholarship to Texas A&M and got a degree in education. Then I qualified to be on the LPGA tour. So that’s how it happened.

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