The Event Isn’t What Breaks You (Your response to it is)

On the mental game — for my golf people and everyone else who has ever unraveled after a bad ruling.

I once lost 12 golf balls on a 9 hole course. And they were my good ones. The hot pink ones I could actually see. I was pretty salty about it.

I was completely in my head. Missing the ball entirely. Hitting it backwards. Into trees, the rough, the sand, the water — places a ball has no business going. Every bad shot made the next one worse because I was carrying all of them with me.

I thought about that round when I watched Bryson DeChambeau receive a 2-stroke penalty at The Open this past weekend. A ruling that caught him completely off guard and by every indication felt deeply unjust. You could see it unfolding in real time — the disbelief, the frustration, the anger rising as he argued with the officials, clearly convinced the ruling was wrong, clearly struggling to contain what was racing through his mind.

And I thought — there it is. The mental game. Not the swing. Not the strategy. Not the club selection. What happens inside you in the moments after something goes sideways that you didn't see coming and didn't deserve.

The penalty wasn't what was going to determine how Bryson finished The Open. What happened inside him in the moments after it was.

What the mental game actually is

Most people think the mental game is about staying positive or keeping your head down when things get hard. It isn't. The mental game is about what you do with the space between the event and your next shot.

That space — however brief — is where everything is decided. The anger, the story you start telling yourself about what just happened and what it means, the way it bleeds into every shot that follows — all of it lives in that space. And if you don't learn to work with what's happening in there, the event controls you long after it's over.

Ask me how I know. Twelve balls. Nine holes. Hot pink.

Bryson had every reason to let that penalty derail him. It was a major. The stakes were as high as they get. And the ruling felt unjust. What he did with those feelings — in those moments on the course with cameras on him and thousands watching — that's what the mental game looks like under pressure. He finished in the top 14. In a major. After a 2-stroke penalty he didn't deserve.

What this looks like in your world

You don't play in majors. But you play in high-stakes moments every single week.

You've been working a borrower for six months — pre-approvals, rate updates, hand-holding through three lost offers — and the day they go under contract they call to tell you they're going with their brother-in-law who just got his license.

You've been getting pre-approvals from a top-producing agent for months — showing up, delivering, building what you thought was a real partnership. Then her buyer goes under contract and she tells them to shop around for the best rate. You find out you were never the lender. You were the pre-approval service.

Your borrower's credit score drops 40 points three days before closing because their spouse opened a store credit card to buy furniture for the new house.

None of those are the problem. They're the penalty. The question is what happens in the space between the moment you find out and your next move.

Do you stay in the frustration and let it color every conversation that follows? Do you carry it into the next call, the next meeting, the next client interaction — without realizing you've brought company? Or do you feel it, name it, and then make a conscious choice about what you're going to do next?

The mortgage professionals who sustain high performance over time aren't the ones who never get the bad ruling. They're the ones who don't let it follow them to the next hole.

The question worth sitting with

Think about the last time something went sideways in your business — something that felt unfair, unexpected, or outside your control. How long did you carry it? How many conversations happened after that were colored by it without you realizing?

The mental game isn't about pretending the penalty didn't happen. It's about how quickly you decide what the next shot is going to be.