This weekend, my husband and I went to Windsor, Ontario to watch our son compete with the Queen’s University golf team.
And somewhere along the way, I became the student.
He was playing some of the best golf I have ever seen him play. Calm. Focused. Completely in it.
Then came one hole.
He hit his drive, and suddenly, no one could find the ball.
If you know golf, you know what that means. A lost ball. A penalty stroke. And potentially, the kind of moment that can completely derail a great round.
I looked at my husband and could practically see the panic on his face. I felt it too. My son had been playing so beautifully, and I thought, Oh no. Please don’t let this be the thing that throws him off.
Then I looked at my son.
He was smiling.
Talking to one of the other players.
Completely calm.
He took the penalty, dropped another ball, made a bogey on the hole, moved on, and played brilliantly the rest of the round.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Later that day, I told him, “I learned something from you today.”
I had watched him experience a setback without allowing the setback to become the story.
And he said something that stayed with me. He told me that he had proven to himself that even when things go wrong, even when he gets knocked down, his mindset can help him come back.
That’s the lesson.
Life is going to hand us lost balls. Bad breaks. Disappointments. Things that feel unfair. Moments when we were doing everything right and suddenly, something goes sideways.
We don’t always get to control what happens next.
But we do get to control the meaning we give it, the energy we bring to it, and whether we allow one difficult moment to ruin the rest of the round.
Sometimes our biggest lessons come from the people we think we’re supposed to be teaching.
This weekend, I watched my son and was reminded:
It’s not how far we fall. It’s how we pick ourselves up, reset, and finish.
And sometimes, the comeback starts with nothing more than taking a breath, dropping the ball, and playing the next shot.
And a big congratulations to the Queen’s Gaels, who came in first place this weekend!
A very proud mom moment.
