Member-only story
Never Concede the Stroke that Beats You
Despair? Never.
It was 1913.
A young man named Francis had just overcome a nearly insurmountable lead in a golf match. Now he had to finish his comeback.
He knew he was fighting for his future in the quarterfinals of this amateur tournament. He didn’t know that everything good that would ever happen to him depended on this moment. He had grown up in near-poverty, with a father who worked in coal mines to support his family. The bedroom window of his youth oversaw a golf club across the street, at which he could never play because his family didn’t have the means to join as members.
He was at an exam that many young people face, where they put their gifts to the test and search for the limits of their own talent. Every impressive victory that followed hinged on his next move.
All he had to do to secure his perfect comeback was to sink one last putt for a birdie on the final hole
But he missed — by less than an inch. He quickly tapped in for a par.
His opponent had two putts to secure the victory and Francis’s loss. It was over. The match. His life. His only chance at progressing in the game of golf.
Then the words of a book he studied religiously popped into his head. “Never despair,” Harry…
