Patience

Patience is more than a virtue, it is the answer to everything. Just wait. Don't just do something, sit there.

In golf, we talk about those who want to make something happen as opposed to those who let things happen. It's the latter, the letters, who prosper, because they have patience.

A favorite complaint among the amateur golfers I play with is 'slow play' and how exasperating it is. I try to remind them that they can leave if they don't like it, and go someplace other than a golf course. There is no clock on us. The best players are not the ready-fire-aim types like John Daly, but the "I'll hit no shot before its time" types like Hogan, Nicklaus, and Woods.

If you want to get much, much, better at golf, play more golf, practice more, work on your short game. DO NOT BUY NEW EQUIPMENT. It takes many years to accustom oneself to using the tools we have.

Is Patience the Secret of Golf? Consider this: when Angelo Argea was Nicklaus' only caddy for many years in a row, he got paid a good bit of money to go over to Nicklaus when he was in trouble and whisper the word 'Patience' to his boss. Ben Hogan was threatened with penalty strokes for taking the amount of time he took, and he told the commissioner that was just fine with him, but please tell him how many penalty strokes were assessed so he'd know how many more to shave off his score.

And a lack of patience will be Tiger's downfall. He just couldn't wait to get back to golf. He plays the Masters in a couple of weeks, and it will NOT be pretty.