Lessons from the Golf Course: Discipline, Focus, and the Art of Performance

Golf is a terrible game. Also, it’s taught me more about acting than years of formal training.

That might sound strange. What does hitting a small ball into a distant hole have to do with performing for camera or navigating AI cinema production?

Everything, as it turns out.

The Similarities

On the surface, golf and acting seem unrelated. But dig deeper and the parallels are striking:

Both require:

• Absolute presence in the moment
• Mental discipline over long periods
• Recovery from mistakes
• Execution under pressure
• Respect for craft over outcome
• Humility in the face of variables you can’t control

The more I’ve explored golf, the more I’ve recognized how its lessons translate directly to performance and filmmaking.

Presence Under Pressure

In golf, you have minutes to prepare for a shot, then seconds to execute. Too much thinking and you tense up. Too little and you miss fundamentals.

The same is true for acting.

You prepare extensively—character work, script analysis, rehearsal. But when the director calls action, you must be completely present. Not thinking about technique, not monitoring your performance, just existing in the moment.

Golf taught me the difference between preparation and execution. Preparation happens before. Execution requires letting go.

One Shot at a Time

A round of golf takes four hours. Eighteen holes. Potentially seventy or more shots.

You can’t play the 18th hole from the first tee. You can only play the shot in front of you.

Similarly, a film shoot spans weeks or months. Hundreds of setups. Thousands of decisions.

The only way to maintain quality is radical presence: this shot, this take, this moment.

Early in my career, I’d dwell on a weak take or worry about tomorrow’s difficult scene. My performance suffered.

Golf taught me to reset completely between shots. One hole is finished, learn what you can, move to the next tee.

Now I apply this between takes. Whatever just happened is done. The only take that matters is the next one.

Managing Variables

Golf is humbling because so much is beyond your control. Wind, terrain, even the grass itself affects outcomes.

You can execute a technically perfect swing and watch the ball land in a divot, deflect off a tree, or catch a gust.

Filmmaking is similar.

You prepare meticulously, deliver your best performance, then discover the lighting was wrong, audio picked up interference, or the shot doesn’t cut together as planned.

Excellence in both pursuits requires accepting what you can’t control while obsessing over what you can.

Control your preparation. Control your focus. Control your response to setbacks.

Release everything else.

The Mental Game

Golf is 90% mental. So is acting.

Technical proficiency is table stakes. What separates good from great is mental management:

Confidence Without Ego: Believing in your ability while remaining humble enough to learn.

Patience: Understanding that mastery takes years, not months.

Resilience: Bouncing back from bad shots without letting them compound.

Focus: Sustaining attention over long periods.

Composure: Performing well even when stakes feel high.

These aren’t abstract concepts. They’re trainable skills, and golf has been my training ground.

The Practice Paradigm

Interesting thing about golf: You practice far more than you play.

For every hour on the course, serious golfers spend multiple hours on the range, perfecting mechanics, building muscle memory, troubleshooting weaknesses.

Acting should work the same way, but often doesn’t.

Actors spend far more time performing than practicing fundamentals. We go from job to job, gaining experience but not necessarily improving specific skills.

Golf reminded me to return to fundamentals even when working regularly. Voice work, movement practice, scene study—these shouldn’t stop just because you’re booking roles.

The pros keep practicing. So should we.

Course Management

Good golfers don’t try to birdie every hole. They play strategically, accepting par on difficult holes and taking calculated risks only when conditions favor them.

This translates to creative decision-making.

Not every scene needs to be your greatest work. Not every project needs to push boundaries. Sometimes the smart play is solid, reliable execution.

Knowing when to swing big and when to play safe—that’s judgment that comes from experience and self-awareness.

Golf teaches you to assess conditions honestly and make decisions based on reality, not ego.

Physical and Mental Integration

Golf requires coordinating body and mind in precise ways. You can know intellectually what to do but still struggle with physical execution.

Acting is identical.

You might understand a character emotionally but struggle to embody them physically. Or have the physical presence but lack emotional access.

Excellence requires integration—body, mind, emotion working in concert.

Golf practice has made me more aware of this integration. When my golf swing feels off, it’s usually because I’m mentally tense. Releasing mental tension corrects physical execution.

The same applies to acting. Physical tension often signals mental barriers. Address the mental component and physical performance improves.

Failure as Feedback

In golf, every shot provides immediate feedback. Too far right? Your alignment was off or face was open. Short of the green? Not enough club or poor contact.

This objective feedback accelerates learning—if you’re humble enough to receive it.

Acting feedback is more ambiguous. A scene can work or not work for countless reasons, many having nothing to do with your performance.

But golf’s mindset transfers: View every outcome as data, not judgment. What did this reveal? What can I adjust?

This removes emotion from evaluation. You’re not “good” or “bad.” You’re simply gathering information to improve the next attempt.

Competing Against Yourself

Golf has the concept of “par”—a neutral standard against which you measure. But truly, you’re competing against the course and yourself, not other players.

This mindset is liberating for actors.

The industry constantly encourages comparison—who’s booking more, who’s getting better roles, whose career is ascending faster.

But the only meaningful comparison is against your own potential. Am I better than I was last year? Am I accessing deeper truth in my performances? Am I making braver choices?

Golf taught me to set my own standard and measure against it, ignoring everyone else’s game.

The Long Game

Perhaps the most important lesson: Golf rewards patience.

You don’t become a scratch golfer in a season. You don’t master the game in a decade. It’s a lifetime pursuit, with incremental improvements and endless refinement.

Exactly like acting.

Early career, I wanted rapid success. I’d get frustrated with slow progress, feel jealous of peers who seemed to advance faster.

Golf recalibrated my expectations. Mastery takes time. Setbacks are inevitable. The journey never ends.

Now I view my career through a decades-long lens. What am I building over twenty years? Thirty?

The pressure of any single project or year diminishes when you’re playing the long game.

Discipline as Freedom

Non-golfers see the sport as rigid—specific grip, stance, backswing. Where’s the creativity?

But elite golfers understand: Discipline creates freedom.

Master the fundamentals so thoroughly that they become automatic. Then you can improvise, adjust to conditions, play creatively within structure.

Acting works identically.

Master voice, movement, emotional access, text analysis. Internalize these so completely that on set, you can forget technique and simply be.

Discipline isn’t the opposite of freedom. It’s the prerequisite.

Bringing It to Set

These lessons show up daily in my work:

Between Takes: I reset completely, just like between golf shots. Previous take is finished.

Preparation: I drill fundamentals even when working regularly.

Pressure: I focus on process, not outcome. Control what I can control.

Mistakes: I view them as data, not failures.

Timeline: I measure progress in years, not projects.

Presence: I play the shot in front of me, fully committed.

Golf didn’t make me a better actor. But it gave me a framework for understanding what better acting requires.

And perhaps more importantly, it provided a practice ground for mental disciplines that serve me every day on set.

Plus, it gets me outside, away from screens, moving in nature—all things that make me better at the technology-intensive work of AI cinema.

Funny how that works.