My Outcome Goals of winning two more Web.com Tour events and finishing the season (including the four "Finals" events) as number one on the money list are well within my reach. In reality, however, my focus is to keep completing my Process Goals. I have control over my preparation, and it is a strong commitment to my Process Goals that will allow me to reach the Outcome Goals I have set. For the third time in the last four weeks, I completed both my Full Fitness Routine and Full Practice Schedule while at home. It is such a great feeling for me to do that, and I know that it is great for my golf game. This week in Utah will mark the final week of the sixth five-week segment of the year for my Process Goals. Because of the great work I have done over the past four weeks, I owe only Light Fitness and Light Practice Schedules this week to complete all of my Process Goals for this segment. I will get that done, and I know that completing my Process Goals gives me a great chance to succeed on the course.
I truly do feel as excited and motivated as ever as I head back out, but this week, something is different. My beautiful and trusty caddie isn't with me. Alicia has been struggling this year with bouts of dizziness and low energy that have made her feel sick at times. It has been particularly bad a few weeks, and the worst was our most recent tournament in Alabama. She is so tough that she hasn't wanted to talk about not feeling well all year, but it got to a point in Alabama where we knew something was wrong, and we couldn't ignore it. Her energy level was dangerously low, and she felt dizzy to the point of nausea. She has been a remarkable stud to not only carry my bag all year, but stay in my rounds mentally enough to provide genuinely helpful insights while on the course. But after feeling, in her words, "just yucky" for most of the year, we are going to quit pretending it's okay and try to find some answers. We visited three different doctors during our week off, and Alicia is going to stay home and undergo a couple of tests over the next ten days. We are excited to get some answers, and super-excited about the prospect of her feeling much better soon. By the way, in case anyone is worried about Alicia's ambition level... Within twelve hours of our decision that she should no longer caddie full-time, she had already requested more responsibility with the organization for which she works at the University of Tennessee AND agreed to teach her first class for the University of Missouri's online school. Professor Alicia H. Malnati, Ph.D. is confident that she'll be getting her energy back soon! Alicia can still do all of her work from the road and we plan to continue traveling together after her next ten days home in Tennessee. I will definitely miss having her with me on the course every week, but I'm actually quite happy with our decision and very excited for her to feel better and join me on the road next week in Kansas City.
I'm also pumped to re-unite with my caddie, Brandon Winton. Brando and I already have one win together, and I'm ready to team up and get after some more! Brandon told me earlier this year that one of his career goals is to be a part of a victorious Ryder Cup team. I'm ready to get to work towards that!
One last note... Zach Johnson won The Open Championship at St. Andrews. He won because he knows his strengths, practices his strengths, believes in his strengths, and trusts his strengths on the golf course. He won because he works really hard AND intelligently. He won because he doesn't care what other players can do--he just takes care of his business. This is inspirational to me because Zach Johnson doesn't do anything that I can't do; he just does it all a little bit better. I'll get there, though, and I honestly believe that.
I'm feeling great, and I'm pumped to get back to work. Keep it here for updates from Salt Lake City, and thank you for following me!
No comments:
Post a Comment