What Golf Taught Me About Leading, Competing, and Being a Neurodivergent Woman in Business

What Golf Taught Me About Leading, Competing, and Being a Neurodivergent Woman in Business

I’m a former professional golfer and have co-managed five businesses — from driving ranges to concrete and asphalt companies. Along the way, I’ve learned lessons about people and about myself that have shaped how I lead, compete, and grow.

The lessons I’ve learned about people and about myself have been nothing short of transformative. Golf is my first love, and it isn’t just a game to me; it’s a passion. I started at age 7, the only girl in an all-boys beginner golf group. I was the first girl on our high school boys' golf team, later receiving a partial scholarship to a Division 1 university in North Carolina.

Golf turned out to be a nearly limitless classroom, especially for a neurodivergent brain like mine. I had the opportunity to learn more about myself in a safe environment, supported by nature. I learned about competition, cooperation, and subtle lessons about discipline, ethics, time, and resource management. But above all else, I was taught how to hone my mental strength, resilience, and grit. Taking lessons from the fairway helped shape how I lead, but first, it taught me how to immerse myself in a process in order to learn. Making decisions under pressure and handling the emotions involved at the highest levels of competition prepared me for life and business alike.

Here are 3 lessons that golf gifted me, which I carry with me every day, meeting every challenge in big moments and the quiet ones.

Lesson 1: Ultimately, You’re Really Playing Against Yourself

Golf provides a truly unique competitive experience. Even though there are often other players in the field, what you’re ultimately doing is trying to be the best version of yourself. That mindset kept me from the toxic habit of comparing myself to others. This would’ve been self-defeating at a time when it was still a fairly male-dominated sport. Instead of feeling discouraged, I felt challenged.

As a woman competing in golf and later in business, I received the valuable life lesson that my biggest competition was my self-doubt. By choosing to focus on raising my own bar — on growth, expansion, and learning — it helped take the focus off comparison, and that has been a game-changer for my competitive edge. I played the course more than my opponent and I bested myself and my scores. Improvement was for the sake of the joy of mastery, and the bonus was coming out on top.

Lesson 2: Composure is a Skill, Not Necessarily an Inborn Trait

This lesson was particularly challenging for me. I grew up as a passionate child with a range of interests and a neurodivergent brain. I came wired with stress, anxiety, and excitement under pressure. You don’t magically become calm under pressure; you have to learn it. I learned it through bad shots, losing my temper, terrible weather, and a whole host of internal pressures that felt incredibly physical. My composure came from practicing composure, learning how to coax it out of myself, to breathe, and trust, not because I came to earth with a serene personality.

Lesson 3: Patience is Power

ADHD gave me the gift of unbridled enthusiasm for anything and everything, and the quicker, the better! Golf is slow, methodical, and painstaking at times. Learning patience is something every golfer must do if they want to succeed, and it’s no different in business. Rushing my golf swing leads to poor shots. Rushing with a client, a team member, or a student leads to mistakes and missed opportunities. I’ve had to learn how to pause, breathe, and listen. In order to make deliberate, mindful decisions, there needs to be a level of patience in place of impulsivity.

Patience isn’t weakness; it’s control in action.

In competition, patience helped me line up my shots, walk all sides of the green reading a putt, and slowly tweak my swing day after day, ball after ball. In business, it helps me manage people, deadlines, and expectations with greater clarity, focus, and control. These are just three ways golf has impacted my performance on the course, in business, and ultimately, in life.

I would never trade the losses, the blisters, the anxiety, or the inevitable failures. They have played a big role in molding me into who I am — a continual work in progress, resilient and free to grow, in whatever direction business and life take me!