Today is not about telling a cheerful story of overcoming adversity or how to work on resilience and thus enrich the asset of values that every human being needs. I also don’t want to ironically dismantle Gary Player, as I attempted more than ten years ago in a chronicle where I contrasted talent versus practice, exemplified in the figure of Dan McLaughlin, that photographer from Oregon who left everything with the goal of practising golf for ten thousand hours, becoming a professional, and competing in serious tournaments.
Before taking you by the hand to another of my quasi-existential reflections, in which golf is merely the leitmotif to activate or, in some cases, unsettle souls, I believe that chronicle deserves me to reveal an outcome that highlighted the stubborn reality was very different. Although Dan dedicated more than six thousand hours over eight years, managing to lower his handicap to a level that many of us would already consider a successful destination (2.6), he did not complete the experiment nor make a living as a professional.
Over time, Dan stopped narrating progress on his blog because injuries spoke before he could have a successful closing ceremony. The obvious cup moral I leave to you, dear readers, I remain with the fact that Dan took with him the experience of trying everything without excuses, with perseverance and even with pain, and that golf, like life itself, cannot be tamed by a stopwatch.
The idea is to break the narrative and make you think about what happens when one forces oneself to live life as an experiment or the reasons why not all stories reach the desired end. Some, like Maggie in Million Dollar Baby, break when tragic fate leads their attempt and struggle to a dead end, and in others, as my reference on meritocracy, Michael Sandel, already said, not reaching does not imply that one has not earned it, because you cannot humiliate those who strive without success nor, on the contrary, glorify results that only depend on good luck (I remind you that the paradox is that this is precisely the luck that Gary Player said increased the more he practised).
Golf is full of stories of people who did everything they had to do (and even more) and yet it was not enough, they did not make it. Players who worked for years, who improved, left skin and soul in the attempt, and yet did not achieve either the goals or the recognition. It’s a matter of expectations because, of course, you cannot say they failed, even if they did not receive what was expected. The same happens in life, there are honest, hard, and sustained trajectories that do not lead to a happy or memorable ending and are not less worth telling for that. They are the stories of “the others,” those who receive less media attention and yet have simply continued doing their job when, as Alejandro Sanz would say, “nobody sees them.”
Outside the orbit of golf in the working world of the rest of us mere mortals, Taleb, – that thinker who studies risk, uncertainty, and improbable events-, already reminds us that the most effective worker is often also the least visible and, precisely for that reason, receives less recognition.
When something truly works and mitigates risks or cushions disasters, no one notices that it might not have worked. In short, good work is often a silent and invisible orphan like a defeat in golf that, moreover, has been preceded by an imperial game.
That was the case of Martin. He was never a prodigy, but neither was he a mistake. He was the type of profile that has flashes of brilliance on some occasions, but no one celebrates because they do not translate into visible results in major tournaments or rankings.
However, Martin’s solidity in the game earned him respect, sometimes even tired and compassionate, from the public, media, and peers. He earned appreciation equally for his calm, affable, generous character and because he never denied his help – not even when this could endanger his survival on the circuit in question.
Obviously, saving all and each of the distances, he played in the style of Scottie Scheffler, as if someone had explained to him from a young age that golf does not reward enthusiasm and that the act of winning does not bring deep satisfaction in itself. He also did not have the attractive force of a player like DeChambeau, aligned with an impeccable and studied marketing strategy. If any other attribute could define his golfing life, those were consistency, repetition, and confidence.
Martin improved and, above all, maintained a reasonably acceptable level to continue paying for the life he had chosen and not have to justify himself too much. Each season he advanced a little more and considered himself close. But he always had the feeling that it was another ten thousand long hours close. What weighed most in his caddie’s bag was the impostor syndrome that took hold of him every time someone asked him how it was possible that he still hadn’t won. Those were the few moments when his confidence as a golfer went for a walk, knowing he would never fit into the heroic narrative of televised golf.
What characterised him was that calm humour, typical of good fighters. He always returned a mischievous smile when someone compared him to Calvin Peete, the golfer who in 1983 reached an almost obscene record of 84.6% fairways hit and was the PGA leader for this reason for ten consecutive seasons.
It is true that both had much in common for being self-taught, for arriving late to professionalism, and for having no margin for error. But, at least, Peete won 12 times on the PGA Tour while Martin was only a placed horse on other lower-level circuits. Like Peete, Martin always did exactly what he had to do and left the ball where it should be. Even so, the narrative was not for him, until today, when another humble pen has decided to rescue him from oblivion, as the reliable player he was. My goal is to do him justice, even if it’s poetic, because today I want, seasoned readers, to talk about what it is to work well in a world that usually remembers and recognises poorly. It is a tribute to those who are in the zone where effort is not questioned, but recognition does not come, they are within the frame, but then do not appear in the photo…
They are those late players who do not even fail enough to be tragic and sit at the table of those who failed too much when history demanded control like Van de Velde, David Duval, or Baker-Finch of the day…
Martin has been a clear example that not all stories reach where they were supposed to go. Not because of a lack of hours, discipline, or sacrifice. Sometimes it’s simply because the narrative needs heroes and doesn’t know what to do with those who fulfil without noise. This text is not a complaint or an excuse. It is a way of looking directly at those honest trajectories that will never be headlines but that sustain the game.
Beyond Martin’s quantum reality, Briny Baird is perhaps the purest embodiment of this: more than a decade walking tournaments, six second places, millions earned… and never a PGA Tour victory. His career was impeccable, respected, and silent, but neither fate nor causality chose him for the podium.
And who remembers Lizette Salas? The Mexican was number one in amateur golf, played more than a decade and 200 tournaments on the LPGA TOUR and never won. Another impeccable career that demonstrates that the system only leaves room for very few. These are careers that are sustained until they are exhausted and this, in male or female, is not always celebrated.
The ten thousand hours seem to promise something that golf never signs a guarantee for. Dan McLaughlin tried it as an experiment, Martin, Briny Baird, and Lizette did it as a profession, the first did not make it and the others never won.
There is consensus that a narrative, to captivate, needs heroes and doesn’t know what to do with those who fulfil without noise. My chronicle is not an unfriendly complaint nor an excuse. It is a way of looking directly at those honest trajectories that are far from the Hall of Fame, but that are essential to sustain the game. Perhaps that’s why I write this. Because, like Martin, like Baird, like Lizette, there are many of you doing exactly what needs to be done and for that, you don’t have to let anyone make you an unexpected balance sheet or even closure. My words do not have the power to correct that, nor to distribute retrospective justice or give you a consolation you shouldn’t need. They simply refuse to let invisibility be the last word.
