Gary Player - Hard Work Made Him a Golf Legend

I've always been a big fan of PGA golf. As a young man in the 1960s, I played 18 holes nearly every day and sometimes 36. As a high school senior, I was captain of the golf team. And I enthusiastically followed the careers of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player - all legendary champions.

I recently viewed a revealing interview with Gary Player. What struck me is that the physical and mental strength that allowed him to compete with Palmer and Nicklaus and win 9 major championships in his career came from his difficult childhood. He deeply loved his mother, but she died when he was 8 years old. His father worked in the mines, so young Gary would have to get himself up at 5 A.M., make his breakfast, catch a trolley car to town, walk across town to a bus stop and ride a bus to school. He returned home the same way to an empty house - at the age of 8. So as a young boy he learned that life was challenging, and he consciously worked on toughening himself up - physically and mentally - to prevail through the challenges.

By contrast, many kids raised today are coddled by parents who feel they must protect their kids from want and difficulty. Young people who don't have to work for what they want grow up with a feeling of entitlement and without the personal strengths they'll need in a world that doesn't care whether they succeed or fail.

How can a child learn to do the hard things if they are protected from adversity while growing up?

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Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2014. Building Personal Strength .