Stand for Something by John Kasich

Author:John Kasich [KASICH, JOHN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC000000
ISBN: 9780759515635
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2006-05-10T04:00:00+00:00

THE PRICE OF WINNING

I’ll tell a story on myself, to illustrate just how much I want to win, and just how much that wanting to win can sometimes get in the way of my better judgment. I think we all struggle with this dichotomy, to a degree, and the key here is to pay attention to these base impulses and do what we can to keep them in check. Here’s what happened: I was playing golf with a group of friends. We take our golf seriously. There’s money on the line, but it’s not a great deal of money, and whatever the amount it doesn’t come close to the ego that’s involved. It’s a pride thing, with our group, a bragging rights thing, more than it is a money thing, and it was beneath the cloud of this type of thinking that I approached my ball on the fairway this one afternoon. I’d been playing well, the bragging rights were within reach, and then I shanked a shot. Happens all the time to us duffers, right? So I told the caddie to chase down that first ball while I hit another one, and after I drove this second shot onto the green I realized none of my buddies had seen my first shot, and for a moment in there I got so completely caught up in this warped, win-at-all-costs mentality that gets some of these athletes and coaches into so much trouble that I wasn’t thinking all that straight.

I walked to the green and putted out, and as I reached down to pick up my ball I thought to myself, What am I doing here? This was supposed to be a game. These were supposed to be my friends. And besides, I realized, the caddie had seen that first shot. Heck, he chased down the ball for me and returned it to my bag. And yet there I was, thinking about taking a five on the hole instead of the six I deserved, and I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. For a couple beats in there, I didn’t quite know how to play it, as my buddy with the scorecard crossed over to me and said, “That’s a five, isn’t it?”

I froze. It was just a split second or so, but in my mind it was an eternity, until I finally said, “No, it was a six.”

“What do you mean, a six?” my buddy shot back.

I said, “Well, I missed a shot.”

It would have never in a million years occurred to this guy that I was thinking of shaving that mulligan off my score, even for just that split second, and even as I write this I’m wondering why I’m copping to it here, but I think it reinforces an all-important point. We’re human. We can’t help ourselves. I’m human. I can’t help myself. And yet, with reflection, most of us manage to get it right, most of the time.

After I put in my score, I crossed over to my caddie and said, “I want you to know, I recorded a six on that hole.

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