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#11 Impossible is nothing... and everything
The hole-in-one is done
6/19/20254 min read
My head was sore this morning. My bank account has a hole. And my heart is a (w)hole lot bigger today. Because yesterday, on the 12th at Leatherhead golf club, I finally managed to break my duck and snag a hole-in-one.
From the moment I hit that 6-iron, the ball never left the pin. But being a longish (and iconic as it was one of Peter Alliss' favourites) par 3 of about 190+ yards, none of us could see what happened to the ball after it landed.
My playing partner Nick (absolute legend) called it instantly: "I reckon that could be in!"
Having experienced quite a few close ones before, my brain went into better-luck-next-time mode. Then as we walked up the hill, there was only Nick’s ball on the green. Which usually means mine went long or ended up in a bunker. No sign and my heart started racing, Nick checked in the hole and beamed back at me.
Blimey, it only finally flipping well happened!
What a year this is turning out to be! First, Palace win the FA Cup and now an ace after literally thousands of attempts since the age of 13 when I first took up the game.
Best cigar and pint moment ever!
Uncanny that
I wasn't even planning on golfing yesterday until my playing partner Vern (another legend and purveyor of top-quality cigars) gave me a nudge.
What else would I have been doing early on a Wednesday? Weirdly enough, I was planning on writing this article about self-belief and confidence, based on the Adidas 'Impossible is nothing' ad campaign.
Serendipity or prophecy? Sometimes things just slot into place.
Over the last 10 weeks, these golf lessons have covered:
So, I was set to tie all this up with some thoughts on self-belief and confidence. Then yesterday changed everything.
Let it happen
Tiger Woods knows: "I let it happen, I don't make it happen."
Yesterday, I wasn't consciously trying to hole it. I wasn't calculating odds. I was just playing the shot in front of me – clear the bunker, roll out to back of the green, don’t short side myself right of the pin.
The conscious mind loves to interfere. It wants to help by offering seventeen different swing thoughts during a 1.4-second motion. But peak performance happens when you get out of your own way.
After thousands of attempts, I'd stopped trying to force the hole-in-one. Instead, I'd learned to trust the process: good setup, smooth swing, commit to the shot. Let the ball do what the ball does.
Tiger's wisdom isn't about aimless hope – it's about trust in your swing fundamentals, your thousands of hours of practice. This is what can happen when you stop trying to control the uncontrollable and start executing what you can actually influence.
Yesterday, I let it happen. And it did.
The fragile truth about belief
Henry Ford famously said: "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."
But here's where golf gets cruel: self-belief is fragile. You can spend months building confidence, then lose it all with one shank.
For forty-odd years, part of me believed I'd never get a hole-in-one. Mainly because the odds are ridiculous – roughly 12,000 to 1 for the average amateur. That's a lot of shots to maintain unwavering belief.
Henry got it right too. Keep playing par 3s and improving my iron play. Keep showing up, despite the mounting evidence that this impossible thing might never happen to me.
The fragile truth: confidence comes and goes, but persistence sticks around.
The momentum shift
Momentum psychology is real. Make one good shot and your brain releases dopamine. Confidence compounds. Everything becomes possible because you've just proved it is.
But here's what's changed since yesterday: what I thought might be impossible now has a lot more chance of happening again.
Not because the physics changed – I'm still the same golfer with the same swing. But because my brain has new evidence. Done it once, so do it again. Impossible reframed as improbable. Building self-belief through accumulated proof. Small evidence that grows into unshakeable knowledge.
For years, I've watched other people hole out and thought "lucky sod." Now I'm the lucky one, and I know something I didn't know before: it's possible for me.
The momentum isn't just psychological – it's practical. I'll play par 3s a bit differently now. Not that I expect to hole every one, but because I now know what I'm capable of.
Impossible is everything
Adidas got it right, just not in the way they intended.
"IMPOSSIBLE IS JUST A BIG WORD THROWN AROUND BY SMALL MEN WHO FIND IT EASIER TO LIVE IN THE WORLD THEY'VE BEEN GIVEN THAN TO EXPLORE THE POWER THEY HAVE TO CHANGE IT. IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT A FACT. IT'S AN OPINION. IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT A DECLARATION. IT'S A DARE. IMPOSSIBLE IS POTENTIAL. IMPOSSIBLE IS TEMPORARY."
Golf is full of people doing seemingly impossible things. Holing out from fairway bunkers. Making eagles on par 5s. Shooting their age. Getting hole-in-ones in their 90s.
The impossible isn't nothing – it's everything. It's what keeps us coming back despite the frustration, the lost balls, the three-putts, and rounds that are just horrible hackathons.
Yesterday reminded me why I love this stupid, beautiful game. Easy... it is most definitely not. But on occasion it delivers moments of pure joy that make every bad shot, missed putt, and stinging disappointment completely worth it.
Impossible is nothing. Until it's everything. And sometimes, if you keep knocking on the door long enough, it opens when you least expect it.
