Tiger and The Dip

Yes­ter­day, fresh back from vaca­tion, I was hard at work tak­ing 3 busi­ness col­leagues to the Memo­r­ial Tour­na­ment in Dublin, Ohio.  I know, rough life.  It was my first in per­son visit to a PGA event, and I must say that I was blown away by just how good the pros are.  I was also reas­sured to see a cou­ple really bad putts, awful chips, and more than one “snow­man” hit the score­card.  (Just good to know that even the best in the world some­times play golf like me).

Any­way, there were sev­eral thou­sand peo­ple gath­ered at Muir­field to watch some great golf at one of the worlds most beau­ti­ful courses.  While there were 120 golfers play­ing, clearly most were there to see one guy.  Tiger Woods.  Tiger did not tee off until noon.  We spent the morn­ing, like every­body else there, check­ing out the course and enjoy­ing some great golf.  Never hav­ing been to a PGA event before, watch­ing the lesser known pros play in the early rounds was much like I pic­tured going to a golf tour­na­ment would be.  There were small groups of peo­ple, politely gath­ered at the tee boxes and some camped out at the greens calmly watch­ing and appre­ci­at­ing the event.  It was serene, polite, and peaceful.

At about 11:30 Tiger was prac­tice putting, and a crowd started to build.  By the time that he went to tee off at 12:35 there was a rock con­cert type energy sur­round­ing him.  It was pal­pa­ble.  The 10^th hole, where he was tee­ing off, was lined with peo­ple 5 to 10 deep from the tee box to the green.  In fact the area sur­round­ing the green was prob­a­bly 25 to 30 peo­ple deep com­pletely sur­round­ing the green.  When Tiger hit — peo­ple cheered.  When Tiger made a long putt, peo­ple screamed.  The vibe felt more like being at an OSU Michi­gan game than a PGA tour event.  It was amazing.

Yes, Tiger hit some great shots.  Yes he hit some long dri­ves and sunk some clutch putts.  Yes, he was fun to watch.  How­ever, he did not have the best round of the day.  By Tiger stan­dards he did not have a great round at all.  (note that I said by Tiger stan­dards cause the guy is amaz­ing.)  Yet 80% of the peo­ple were there to see him play.  Why?  He is the best in the world.  He is amaz­ing.  He has the poten­tial to do things on the golf course that no other human can do.  He is excep­tional.  Peo­ple want to fol­low and watch and learn from and cheer for excep­tional — not just good.

The dif­fer­ence between the crowds fol­low­ing every other group of golfers and Tiger’s group could not have been more dif­fer­ent.  From size to inten­sity to diver­sity — Tiger was clearly the main attrac­tion.  He is the best in the world

While all this was going on I was reminded of one of my favorite books by Seth Godin — The Dip.  In the book, Seth pro­vides an in-depth dis­cus­sion of why it is impor­tant to be “the best in the world.”  He uses the ideas of the Paretto Prin­ci­ple and Parkinson’s Law to talk about why the best gets so much more atten­tion than the next best or the 10^th best.   Not only that, but he states that to be the best in the world, a per­son has to quit doing any­thing that does not con­tribute to that goal.  Tiger and the expe­ri­ence at the Memo­r­ial  is an extreme illus­tra­tion of The Dip.

Tiger is so focused.  Tiger is so deter­mined. Tiger is so amaz­ing, that every­one in the world knows that he is the best in the world at his craft.  He has ded­i­cated his entire life to it.  He has been blessed with phys­i­cal tal­ent, devel­oped emo­tional strength, and honed his skills to such a level that when peo­ple go to see golf, most really go to see Tiger.  He pushed him­self through the dip, and became the best.

Were the other 119 guys there that much worse than Tiger?  Nope.  They are all phe­nom­e­nal.  They are all very, very good golfers.  Peo­ple could have got­ten within a few feet of most of them.  Peo­ple could have prob­a­bly spo­ken to many of them and inter­acted with them.  Peo­ple could have stud­ied their game, missed the crowd, and saw some very good golf — but most did not.  Most opted to see Great over Very, Very good.

Think about what you do.  How can you take the very, very good work you do, and make it con­sis­tently great?  Might you hit some in the rough? Yeah sure.  Still, if you are ded­i­cated to being the best, you take that chance, learn from mis­takes, quit things that don’t work, and push on towards being the best.

Yes, of course, sports analo­gies are over-used and over-rated.  Still, watch­ing Tiger got me think­ing more about what I do, how I can become bet­ter, and what it might mean to one day be the best in the world.

So, if you can ever see Tiger play — do it.  If you think you might want to learn more about The Dip, read it.  And, if you can become the best in the world at what you do — DO IT!