Nick Saban says golf humbles him, teaches about success in life
Nick Saban is not the best golfer around (he's probably not even the best SEC head coaching golfer), but he sure does glean a lot of lessons from the game.
By
Kyle Porter
•
1 min read
Nick Saban has a chipping problem. You already knew that. But Saban discussed it in more detail with Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports recently.
"One of the easiest shots in golf is chipping," said Saban. "It should be the easiest. It's like throwing a ball or pitching pennies. It's easy. And I struggle with that, and the struggle is all mental. It's like every time I hit a shot and I have to chip, my thought is, '[Expletive], I have to chip.' It's a mindset that you are telling yourself that you're gonna fail, rather than just focusing on what you have to do to succeed and even though you may not do it well, eventually you will."
This isn't the first time Saban has used golf to talk about football and life in general. It even helped Alabama win a national championship a few years ago.
"Golf is a great example to me," Saban told Fox Sports. Golf is a metaphor of life. I mean, every shot. You have this beautiful hole, this beautiful opportunity to get a good score. You hit a beautiful drive. Well, I don't know how many times I've been 114 yards from the hole and made double bogey. Well, I hit a great drive, but it doesn't matter. It's only the next shot that matters.
"You could hit that in the water, which means now you have to overcome adversity. You put yourself in a hole and it's, 'Can I get up and down and still make bogey?' But that's how life is. Sometimes you don't control it. You've got to keep harping on this stuff all the time."
Words of wisdom from one of the best ever. I still wouldn't mind seeing Saban lay the sod over one like Jordan Spieth did at the Masters this year. For somebody who's been absurdly successful, it might be fun to see him be, you know, terrible at something.
