Golf Confessions

Within hours of Annika Sorenstam announcing that she was stepping down from competitive golf, number one tennis star Justine Henin announced that she was stepping down immediately.  Henin is only 25 and is currently ranked the number one female player in the world. 

 There seems to be more and more top ranked athletes getting away from their sports before they have either met their full potential or before their competitive days are over.  The price that these athletes pay to be tops in their fields is becoming more and more pressure packed.  The lives that they and their families have to live is causing more problems away from the game.  The media is constantly in their face.  And a lot of these athletes have come from quite and unassuming lives and this instant success is quite over whelming.  The instant stardum and mega contracts can put these athletes in very uncomfortable surroundings.

The constant pressure to stay on top takes a tremendous toll on the physical and mental capacity of the body.  So many of these athletes have been striving to become the best they can be from a very early age.  Annika Sorenstam has been working on her game and seeking to be the best she could be for a long time.  In 2007 she missed most of the season with back problems.  Henin is only 5′5″ and she has been competing against much larger opponents most of her career.  This takes a tremendous amount of hard work and dedication.  The rewards are great, but these individuals give up a lot of things that most people take for granted.  I know Lee Trevino would eat in his hotel room almost every night, a lot of times alone.  He knew if he went to a restuarant he would get mobbed by autograph seekers.  Chi Chi Rodriguez also would have his caddy get him a carry out dinner almost every night.  Stardum can almost make these people a recluse.

The life of a athlete in an individual sport is not all the glamour that a lot of people think it is.  The travel and spending so much of your life living out of a suitcase can get very old very quickly.

The competition is getting stronger every day and the pressure to stay on top of your game never ends.  And when you have a bad day or bad week the press is in your face wanting to know what is wrong.  The press can also ask some very dumb questions over and over.  Each and every week the athlete has to meet with a new group of reporters in a new town and the questions start all over again. 

An athlete gets mentally fatigued more than physically.  The constant battle to perform at your best works on the mind and after a while can cause physical break downs.  All athletes know that they are not perfect and that they will hit bad shots from time to time, but they know they are usually not superior enough to make mental mistakes and beat the field. 

Kids are peparing at younger and younger  ages to be at the top of their sports.  There are camps for golf, baseball, soccer, gymnastics, tennis and every other sport imaginable.  These camps offer, at a huge price, the opportunity for kids to attend these facilities and live there year round.  They get their academic requirements and receive athletic instruction daily.  They live and breath their sport.  And it seems that if you are going to be competitive you have to have this dedication in order to compete.  Countries around the world are going thru a selective process and putting kids in private and government run facilities to produce the top athletes.

So we may be seeing what this early pressure and constant scrutiny  is having on the athlete of today.  The drug problems in so many sports in order to be the best will eventually work its ugly self into every form of sports.  The big bucks and fame certainly has a price to pay.  We have seen in golf that so many players do not like the heat that comes along with being #1.