I’ll never play golf like Rory McIlroy. But maybe he can teach me how to live with my mistakes

I need to stop dwelling on everything I get wrong, from sending my ball into the drink to squeezing the wrong bottom

Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy plays from the 17th tee during a practice round for The 150th British Open Golf Championship on The Old Course at St Andrews in Scotland on July 13, 2022.

‘Memories of daft things I’ve said and done, big and small, assail me without warning’ … Rory McIlroy during at St Andrews in 2022. Photograph: Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images

Whether you’re into sport or not, there’s wisdom to be mined from it. Once you’ve picked your way through the platitudes, banalities and cliche there’s gold in there.

Rory McIlroy’s famous victory at the US Masters earlier this month yielded, for me anyway, a particularly good example. McIlroy’s psychologist, Bob Rotella, has been credited with helping his man develop golf’s key mental skill: putting your bad shots behind you and barely giving them a second thought.

Asked how he went about this in an interview, Rotella said: “We begin with the idea that golf, by design, is a game of mistakes. And if you love the game of golf, you have to love that it’s a game of mistakes. If you’re trying to change it into a game of perfect then you don’t really like golf, you’re trying to change it into the game you want it to be. And the other players are playing the same game so they’re all going to make a lot of mistakes. The second part is, because you’re a human being you’re going to make mistakes that you can’t believe you made. You have to accept that. So, accepting the game is a big part of it.”

It’s well worth substituting the word “life” for the word “golf” in that paragraph.

In life, and in golf, I could do with an hour of Mr Rotella’s time. I simply cannot get a bad golf shot I’ve just played out of my mind. In fact, I vividly recall terrible shots I played years ago. And don’t talk to me about visualisation. If I’m hitting over water, not only can I not picture the ball clearing it, I can see and hear it plopping into the drink.

It’s the same with life. Memories of daft things I’ve said and done, big and small, assail me without warning. Like the time in the 80s when, walking into a Judie Tzuke concert at the Birmingham Odeon, I unaccountably gave my friend’s bottom a squeeze, only to find it wasn’t my friend, it was some other bloke. The thought of things like this literally, physically, makes me jump. But not any more. I’m channelling Bob Rotella for all I’m worth. Soon I hope to be able to listen to Judie Tzuke without juddering in horror.

Life’s a game of mistakes and so be it. Cheers, Bob.