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I’ve never been much of a golfer. I have participated in the activity many times, but that doesn’t make me a golfer. Shooting below 100 is cause for celebration, in my opinion. But it is fun to play, and there are a lot of things that you can learn about blogging from golf. I haven’t been blogging for very long, but this is what I’ve gathered so far about how they’re related:

1. All-Stars at the top of the game

Professional golf and professional blogging both have guys at the top of the game that are basically household names. Golf has Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Blogging has Darren Rowse of Problogger.net and John Chow of John Chow dot Com. These are the guys that everyone looks to and tries to emulate. They are all at the point in their careers where they making money just by being them. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson make enough money from endorsements to live off of without even playing golf. Darren Rowse and John Chow have people paying them lots of money just to get the name of their site mentioned on Problogger or Johnchow.com. That’s basically the equivalent of endorsement money.

 

2. Easy to do, hard to be the best

All you need to golf is a set of clubs and enough money to pay greens fees. All you need to blog is some type of blogging software, which you can easily find for free at places like WordPress. That’s it. It’s extremely easy to do both. It’s extremely difficult to be the best at either, however. That’s why both golfing and blogging have so many more amateurs than professionals.

 

3. Most often, it doesn’t work out as planned

If you’ve ever golfed before, you know what I’m talking about. You tee the ball up, getting ready to drive. You swing the way you were told is the best way to drive the ball straight down the fairway. Next thing you know, your ball is going right like it’s merging onto the interstate. Or, you line the ball up perfectly for a putt, and it breaks just before the hole. Surprises like this happen in blogging, too. How often have you written a post thinking, “Man, people are going to love this stuff,” only to find out that no one reads it or cares about what you’re saying? Then, you write a random post, and out of the blue people love it and it makes the front page of Digg.

 

4. Both have big-hitters and masters of the short-game

Golf has guys that can drive the ball well over 350 yards whenever they feel like it, like John Daly (left). They make you sick because they drive the green on a long par 4, and you would be lucky to get there in 3 shots. The blogging equivalent to the John Daly’s of the world are people like Steve Pavlina at Stevepavlina.com. He can bang out 2,000 word posts that are full of good information. So good, that you read every word of his dissertations, and you’re a better person because of it. Then, you have masters of the short-game. Watching golfers like Fred Funk and Jim Furyk approach the green is a thing of beauty. In the blogging world, Mike Florio at profootballtalk.com has mastered the short-game, because he can pack tons of information into very short posts that he puts up multiple times a day. If you’re into football and have never visited Florio’s site, then welcome back from your coma. You should head on over there and check it out.

 

5. Hazards are in play

Golf and blogging both have hazards that are easy to fall into. Golf has physical things like sand traps and water hazards that impede your path to the green. If you don’t land in any hazards, then you’re well on your way to a successful round of golf. Blogging has its hazards, as well, especially for beginners. Here’s a funny article from CourtneyTuttle.com called 10 Easy Ways to Make Yourself look like a Blogging Newbie. There are lots of hazards to fall into, I know I’ve found tons of them and I know I’ll find tons more. But, in order to be successful in blogging or golf, you have to find ways to steer clear of them.

 

6. Journey to success

For most things in life, it takes a good amount of time to be successful. Blogging and golf are no exception…generally. There are some people who seem to skip the journey and shoot straight to success. People, like golfer Michelle Wie, sometimes find success very early on in their careers. Wie announced that she was turning pro a week before her 16^th birthday. You know what I was doing at 16…working at a grocery store, certainly not playing professional golf. A blogger that had considerable success very quickly is Tina at Thinksimplenow.com. She has a great blog that I often use for a little inspiration. If you’ve never been there, I suggest you go. It will change your life.

 

But the biggest thing I’ve learned in my couple months of blogging is that I need to give this time. I didn’t expect to be an overnight success, as Kevin and I laid out in our Expectations post. But I must admit that I did expect to see a little more success than we have, thus far. It takes time. We have to get better at blogging, just like gofers have to get better at golfing.

 

What do you think?

• Did I miss anything?

• Do you think blogging relates to golf in any other ways?

• How about other sports or other aspects of life?

 

 

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