Losing at golf, winning in life

Every Thursday morning, I have to wake up early to go to ABS-CBN studio before 7 for my weekly advice segment on business. After which, I have breakfast with my wife in a fine restaurant we frequent. Then I go to my office and get a report from my key people running our “Mad Science” business. One particular Thursday at the office, a short email from Manuel Tesoro caught my eye. “Hi Francis,” it began, “I like the inspirational stories you write in your book. I’m sure you’d love to include this one in your compilations.” I click on to the site and it led me to the Yahoo sports site with the sports blog, “Devil Ball Golf.”

In it Shane Bacon tells us an incredible story. The article is entitled: “When losing a golf tournament really makes you a winner.

Here’s how it goes:

 There are times to be competitive. Moments when all you want to do is humiliate your opponent as you defeat him. It’s the nature of sports, and what our internal competition meters usually read.

That, we all know, is how athletes feel most of the time. But, at times, and these are few and far in between, we see acts that defy wins and losses: when a girl is brought out on crutches for scoring a layup or breaking a record, or someone being carried off the field after she twisted her ankle rounding the bases. Opponents coming together to transcend the game.

That is what happened between two collegiate golfers, vying for a spot in the NAIA National Championship.

Grant Whybark, a sophomore at the University of St. Francis, had locked up a spot in nationals with his team, which won the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship. He was in a playoff against Olivet Nazarene’s Seth Doran for individual honors.

As championships go, both the winning team and winning individual are asked to move on to nationals, so if Whybark won the playoff against Doran, he’d be honoring both spots and Doran wouldn’t be asked to move on.

What happened next is the type of stuff movies are made of. Whybark stood over his tee shot on the first playoff hole, looked down the fairway and back at his ball, and hit it 40 yards right off the fairway, out of bounds by a mile. He made double bogey, Doran made par, and Olivet Nazarene had a man in the nationals.

What makes it so incredible? Whybark intentionally did it, because he felt Doran had earned a spot in the next round.

“We all know Seth very well,” Whybark explains, “and he not only is a very good player, but a great person as well. He’s a senior and had never been to nationals. Somehow, it just wasn’t in my heart to try to knock him out.

“I think some people were surprised, but my team knew what I was doing and was supportive of me. I felt Seth deserved to go (to nationals) just as much as I did.

“It was one of those things where I couldn’t feel good taking something from him like this. My goal from the start was to get (to nationals) with my team. I had already done that.”

Too many times we read about cheap shots or fights or cheaters, and it is stories like this that make it all seem petty. A golfer simply knew his place, was comfortable with where he was, and thought that a senior, playing in his final tournament as a collegiate golfer, had done enough to earn one more week with the game he loved.

I’m not a big believer in karma, and I’m sure the story won’t end the way it should, but if Whybark somehow won nationals, it would make for a really nice screenplay. Whybark did what most of us would never do, and although he is short of a trophy, in his case, he earned respect from anyone reading this story.

End of article.

I am not a believer in karma. I am a firm believer of Scripture’s principle of “sowing and reaping.”  And when you look at our country’s electoral process, where in candidates attack each other, zeroes in on personalities and not issues, then one thing is clear: we all need a lot of growing up to do.

Things like these do not only happen in public offices; these happen in work places too, and yes, even in churches.

Live and let live. Growing old is inescapable, but growing up is optional. Being mean does not equal being great. I just have to remind myself all the time of that: the end does not equal the meanness!” Maybe we should all be reminded of that. 

(Develop your leadership skills! Francis Kong will be the lead trainer for the Dr. John Maxwell’s “Developing the Leader Within You” leadership program this May 27-28 at Dusit Hotel. For further inquiries, contact Inspire Leadership Consultancy Inc. 632-6872614 OR 09178511115.)