Lose or fail. Details below 👇👇
Shane Lowry’s link for the sixth row of the PGA championship would be the coronation of most professional golf careers. He finished 14 sous, came a few centimeters from the first 61 in the history of the major championship and won $ 639,440 as a price. Tour players post stuff like this all the time after a big week: a quick update on the results, some hints about what’s to come, and a thank you to the fans for their support. But one notable line in Lowry’s post was: “Did Shane Lowry really screw up after beating 151 of the best players in the world at Valhalla?” The lack of a clear answer highlights one of the trickiest dynamics in golf, professional and otherwise: 156 players will enter next week’s U.S. Open and there can be only one winner. Applying only the narrowest definition of success is to ensure a wide range of disappointment. And this is just the height of sports. Survey a parking lot full of golfers after a typical net tournament, or even a friendly match, and satisfaction is often in short supply.
All of this might lead to a familiar conclusion: Golf is hard, and misery is a given. If Shane Lowry isn’t content with finishing with a mediocre fourth round, there’s little hope left for the rest of the fighters, but that’s too simplistic. Because the real key to survival in golf isn’t avoiding failure: it teaches you to know the difference between when you fail and when you lose. This is the part of the story that might make you roll your eyes. Seven years ago, I published a book exploring this very subject called Winning Even When You Lose: How Your Greatest Setbacks Lead to Your Greatest Gains. Since then, I’ve returned to the subject frequently. The book examines notable failures across a range of disciplines, including golf, and raises a central question about the difference between loss and failure, two words that we tend to use interchangeably, but in doing so we miss an essential difference. “Loss is just a fact. Failure is your interpretation of what happened,” popular psychologist and author Dr. Jim Lauer explained in his book, “Loss is just a fact. Failure is your interpretation of what happened.” “Failure is almost always seen as something you did wrong. There’s a much more accusatory component.”
When these two events are treated accordingly (loss as a simple event in time, failure as a commentary on performance), each game of golf becomes a compelling case study, all dependent on context. By most objective standards (who he beat, paycheck, how close he came to making history) Lowry’s sixth-place finish at the PGA was a great week. But when you take a closer look, things aren’t all so rosy. Lowry entered Sunday two strokes behind, but his final round score of 70 was the second-best score in the top 10. Each golf player evaluates the performance on a different slide scale. In the first seven years of the 2019 Open Championship, in the first seven years, in the case of Lree, he probably couldn’t get the opportunity (Lawuri refused to answer the question). “Failure is when you give up. You give up or you do something stupid that doesn’t leave you a chance.”
As expected, Bryson DeChambeau was able to evaluate his performance at the PGA Championship more favorably. When Xander Schauffele made the decisive birdie on the 18th hole, he finished six strokes ahead of Lowry and was on the driving range preparing for a playoff, and by DeChambeau’s definition, the PGA was a simple loss.
Bryson DeChambeau acknowledges the crowd after holing a birdie putt at the 18th hole during the final round of the 2024 PGA Championship. “I gave it everything I had and made him earn it,” DeChambeau said. “There aren’t many shots I want to hit back. Of course I wanted to win,” he said. It’s a bite. But I am always proud of how to play. “Despite the fact that you abandoned,” he said. “You go and do stupid things, but it doesn’t give you luck.”
The difference in wine loss for the situation is not to check a specific box, but to check what golf is necessary. The temptation is that the best golf players are paid very well. Their motives cannot help. But the higher the stakes, the more baggage they’re carrying: without confirmation of victory, players tend to look elsewhere for positive reinforcement. “Probably self-preservation as a professional golfer is your No. 1 priority,” says professional golfer Joel Dahmen. “I think you’re always trying to take something positive from each week, whether it’s whether you stuck to a routine, whether you ate healthy that week, whether you ate well.” If you take the view that it’s never good enough, you’re going to have very, very few days in your golfing life that you get satisfaction from.”
A year ago, veteran tour pro Billy Horschel’s game had reached such depths, he shot 84 at the Memorial and broke into tears in a press conference afterwards. A resurgent 2024 is apparent in a win at Puntacana an