Talent & Passion: Do They Always Go Together?

by mdiehl on April 15, 2012

For some of us, a passion starts at a very early age. And so does a talent.

I wonder, though, how often the passion and the talent aren’t for the same thing?

I’ve talked before about my son, Colin — it was his observation to me three years ago that led me to start this blog (and inspired its title). Our conversations over his life have given me things to thing about, like whether “schmooze” is an actual leadership style.

Colin is the youngest of TJ’s and my four sons. He and Graham were born during our Tour years and they’ve grown up around golf courses. Unlike several of the Tour kids of their generation, they didn’t grow up to have careers in golf. But all of them have a natural talent for the game.

Talent + passion. Or not.

I think it was my oldest son, Matt, who once said that he thought Colin had the most natural talent of all four of them. There have been times when the boys played together for the first time in a season and Colin — not having touched a club for a year — ended up beating all of them. They hate that when it happens. Good-natured ragging goes on.

When Colin was about 11, he played in his first sub-junior district tournament (his only sub-junior tournament). Unlike Graham, who wrote about his competitive thoughts while playing in the same tournament, Colin’s style was completely “hang loose.”

I walked around with Colin in his first match. This was played on the same course where his dad had won the NY State Amateur at 19 — Locust Hill Country Club in Rochester, NY.

Parents were allowed to walk around with their kid, but not to give any coaching or tips — which was a good thing, because I had none to give as a non-golfer.

Here’s where we come to the diverging path between passion and talent.

Colin has had a passion for nature, wildlife, fish and the environment since he was just a Kindergartener. As we walked around from shot to shot, Colin would often be paying more attention to the birds, or the fish in the ponds than whether it was his turn to hit. In fact, he’d have to be reminded by one of the parents of his competition (or by me) that he was up.

At one tee, he wandered toward the adjacent woods while his opponent took his tee shot.

“Colin, it’s your turn,” I reminded him.

He pointed toward some bushes. “Look, Mom. There’s a rabbit.” I don’t think he even heard me when I said it was his turn. His focus was completely on the nature he observed.

“Colin!” the parents called. I think they were getting a bit peeved.

Colin walked up to the tee, and without taking a practice swing, striped it down the middle of the fairway.

The dads shook their heads. They said they envied his relaxed state.

I tried to split my time between walking with Colin and with Graham, who was playing his own match at the same time in a very different “state”.

Colin and Graham both won their morning matches. When I joined Colin before his round in the afternoon, he had — in the true style of a kid whose dad played on the Tour — “hired” himself a 12 year old caddie, one of the boys who had lost his match in the morning.

I think I should also mention that Colin was wearing one of his dad’s size XL golf shirts — XL has become the “universal golf shirt size” of the Diehl men. It bagged around his 11 year old body like a sail. He also wore one of the gazillion golf visors that resided in our house. It was like someone had hit a Tour player with a shrinking ray or made a golf-version of the movie “Big.”

So Colin’s passion (the natural world) never interfered with his talent on the course. He ended up winning his division and getting his picture in the paper.

Maybe his passion helped him win. In turning his attention away from competing, he allowed his natural talent to flow. He really didn’t care whether he won or not. It just happened.

Though they come from the same genes, each one of the “the boys” is an individual with a different nature, which serves them for good or ill on the golf course.

And like each one of us, they all have natural talents and their own passions.

Colin is now a wildlife biologist and environmental scientist. That’s where his talent and passion meet.

I have a talent for drawing, sculpture and art, but I never had the passion for it. Fortunately, I do have both the talent and passion for writing.

How about you? Do you have a passion for something, but your talent lies elsewhere? Have your passion and talent aligned? And how much does your nature — laid back, competitive, whatever — serve or hinder your talent?

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Talent & Temperament: Is It All In the Genes?

by mdiehl on March 18, 2012

You’re looking at the next generation of Diehl golfers. What will his game hold?

This is Nate. Last summer, daddy Graham (#3 in the Diehl Boys lineup) took his boy out for the first time on a golf course. Nate is 6 1/2 and he loves to play sports. I imagine that what was most exciting and special was getting to go with his dad — just the two of them — to a golf course. Nate knows daddy has a lot of fun playing golf with friends and of course, with Nate’s uncles and Grandpa Terry.

I think this course in the picture is a little mom ‘n pop course. Not much traffic, a place where it’s OK to take a little one out without disturbing anyone.

That’s quite a difference from how Graham learned to play golf and where he hit balls in a lineup with his brothers at the driving range at Oak Hill. When TJ was home on a break from the Tour, he’d take all four boys out to Oak Hill and get them two buckets of balls to hit. Graham was just a little guy. TJ gave them little tips and never pushed – we got a kick out of watching them.

Each of the boys has talent. Even back then, ranging in age from about 12 to 4 years old, they had a natural sense of what to do with a golf club. And their emotional games were already forming.

Graham was intent and serious, even as a kid.

(Colin, the youngest, used to swing so hard that he’d sometimes spin off his feet and fall on his butt. Or he’d be busy playing with the range balls. Hey, he was just a little guy.)

Graham went about hitting balls like the student he was. By the time he was 13, he played his first district golf tournament in the sub-junior division. It isn’t that his brothers didn’t play in tournaments, too. But Graham was the one who wrote about it in an essay in high school.

I just found that essay today. It was in an art folder stored in my attic. There on the page was a description of his mental game.

“As I waited on the first tee, I was extremely nervous,” he wrote. He was the youngest of 5 kids representing Bristol Harbour Golf Club at the qualifier [TJ was president of the club at the time and the boys spent a lot of time at the course]. He ended up shooting a 91 (45-46) and was the only one to make the cut.

(By the way, this was played at Locust Hill Golf Club — the site of the Wegmans LPGA Championship.)

That boosted his confidence. The next day, he moved to match play.

“I wasn’t as nervous because I had a different attitude, since I realized that I could compete with all these other kids,” he says in the essay. “Besides that [ -- and here's what kills me, the seriousness of it --] my dad gave me a few new swing thoughts.”

His game was up and down, “good on one hole, horrible the next.” He was winning by one hole on the 18th hole. Then he hit “a growling slice into the woods. I was in a difficult position.” He lost the hole. They tied and went into a sudden death playoff.

Graham moved on to the semi-finals. He sized up his opponent:

There was no way I could lose. I had a good 6″ and 40lbs on him. He teed up and hit his shot about 175 yards down the middle of the short par 5. I felt like laughing after I crushed my shot about 250 yards down the right side of the fairway. I lost the hole after a bad second shot, but I was extremely pumped; in fact, a little too pumped. I hit my second shot over the green every time and when I got onto the green, I kept putting about three feet by the hole. I was getting very frustrated. I was about to snap all my shafts. On the 10th hole, I was 8 holes down, but began to play better, although I was still struggling.

Here’s where it gets good: Then my mom came to watch me on about the 13th hole… My mom was cooling me down. I took a deep breath and remembered everything my dad taught me about chipping…

… I love that part….

He kept winning holes and had to win all three of the last 3 holes to win the match. They ended up tying the last hole. The other boy won the match.

We shook hands and walked back to the clubhouse together. I don’t know how I kept my cool… I couldn’t believe I lost to this kid. I guess I was really mad at myself for getting so cocky and then angry. Next time I’m just going to play against myself. I mean by this, thinking about every shot before I hit it and not what I have to do to win.

The good news is, he came away proud of himself. It was the first tournament of his life and he made it to the top eight in Rochester.

What Graham didn’t write was that he eventually asked me not to watch him. He was getting too upset in the match and wanted to struggle on alone. I honored his feelings — I’d had long practice in reading a player’s emotions during a round. Besides, Colin was playing at the same time in the tournament in a younger division — and that’s a whole other story I can’t wait to tell you. Talk about differences in temperaments!

So anyway… I did edit out a comment Graham made about what he really wanted to do to his opponent as they walked back to the clubhouse. I could just see Graham — he might be seething inside, but he would be composed and even-tempered on the outside, being a gentleman. Even at 13. That’s pretty much his temperament. And he has a wicked sense of humor.

Whether Nate has the talent that his dad and his uncles seemed to be born with is still to be discovered. And who cares, anyway? What’s important is that Nate gets the chance to have fun with his dad and be able to share experiences. And so far, we have two little Diehl girls coming up in the ranks — who knows if one of them is carrying “the golfing gene”. Maya, at 4, has been asking her dad Matt if he’ll take her to the course.

They definitely didn’t get that gene from me.

By the way — I didn’t edit Graham’s words. All my boys are very good writers. I like to think there’s a genetic link there. Ahem.

Maybe the lesson here is that it doesn’t matter what genes you inherit, as long as you enjoy the gifts they bring.

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Weddings & Golf – Northwest Montana Style

February 17, 2012

This is my son, John, and my daughter-in-law, Trina, on their wedding day in Kalispell, Montana. I’m missing them so much tonight. Well, every night, really. It’s hard to have one of my boys — a piece of my “Magic Circle” as John once described his brothers and me — clear across the country. It’s [...]

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Rock Idols, Love Stories & Two Writers Talking

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Who Says Golf Isn’t Funny?

February 3, 2012

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How One Letter Led To Writing for Golf Digest

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Wow. There it was. Tucked in a file of notes, pieces of writing and old magazine covers: The letter I wrote to the late Peter Dobereiner, venerable British golf writer and former columnist for Golf Digest — the letter that led to my first national magazine article. I’m a keeper. I keep everything I think [...]

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Bullying: 3 Stories, 3 Outcomes & 1 Dad

January 25, 2012

I read the news today, oh boy… A father (a police officer) turned his son in after seeing a viral video of his son participating in a beating. ‘I did the right thing as a parent,” he said. Watch the news report I thought about how many parents would not do the right thing. Then [...]

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Can We Put the Brakes On Our Addiction to Hurry?

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Call this Part 2 of my blog post on not having goals this year. This essay was published in 2004 in The Daily Messenger — and I referred to the “no goals” essay in it. Like that essay, I still feel the same way about slowing life down for more fulfillment and happiness. My trip [...]

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For Some of Us, Life Is Better Without Goals

December 31, 2011

Happy 2012! In January 2000, this essay was published in the Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester, New York. It’s one of my favorites. At the time, this got a half-page spread on the editorial page, accompanied by a large illustration of a locomotive speeding down a track and a woman jumping off. (Wow, you’d never [...]

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When A Christmas Tree Is A Milestone

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This essay was originally published as a Last Word in Canandaigua Magazine in 2008. It’s one of my favorites, since it pays homage to certain milestones in my life. I could write, “I don’t have a Christmas tree this year,” but that’s another essay… I wanted to share this with you as a way to [...]

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