I didn’t take up golf until I was 60. If you’d told me years earlier that I’d end up loving the game as much as I do now, I would have laughed.

The reason I started playing was actually pretty simple. My husband has always played, and I have two adult sons who are now both married, with one of them recently welcoming a little baby. One of my sons also lived in America for a long time before returning to Australia with his wife, and I realised golf was something we could all enjoy together. I wasn’t chasing a new hobby or looking to become a great golfer. I just wanted to be able to get out on the course with my family, hit the ball into the air and enjoy the day without making a complete fool of myself.

Until then, my golfing experience had been limited to the occasional holiday round where, like most beginners, the ball mostly sculled along the ground. My goal wasn’t anything fancy. I simply wanted to be able to play the game well enough to enjoy it. So I booked a few lessons and decided that if I was going to give golf a go, I was going to do it properly. I didn’t even own a set of clubs at the time, but I thought I’d see how the lessons went before taking the plunge.

It didn’t take long before I was hooked. As soon as I started making decent contact with the ball, I completely fell in love with the game. I bought my own clubs, started playing with my husband and my sons whenever I could, and before I knew it, I’d caught the golf bug. Looking back, that’s probably what surprised me most. Golf had never been on my radar, yet suddenly I couldn’t get enough of it.

Absolute Best's Jacqueline Smith.

The other thing that caught me by surprise was just how difficult this game really is. Before I played, I’d watch golf and think, how hard can it be to get around in par? You only have to get it in the hole in four or five shots.

I actually remember saying that to my coach. As it turns out … it’s bloody hard. I decided maybe becoming a bogey golfer would be a better goal. As it turns out, I’m a double-bogey golfer, but I’m getting better all the time, and that’s enough to keep me coming back. One of the things golf has taught me is that improvement is rarely quick, but it’s incredibly satisfying when you start seeing the results of the work you’ve put in.

That idea of doing the work has always been a big part of my life, and it’s really the reason I called my business Absolute Best. I honestly don’t care whether someone wins or loses. What matters to me is whether they’ve given the best they had on the day. That’s the philosophy I tried to teach my children growing up, especially one of my sons, who was a very competitive tennis player. I would often tell him not to come off the court feeling proud just because he’d won if he hadn’t really tried. On the other hand, if he’d given everything he had and still lost, he could walk away with his head held high because he’d done everything he could.

It’s the same message I share with the people I coach in business. Not long ago, I was working with someone who admitted he wasn’t really giving his job everything he had. I asked him how that felt, and he said, “It feels terrible.” I told him he had a decision to make. If he didn’t want to be there, he should leave, but if he chose to stay, then he owed it to himself to commit to it properly. Giving half an effort never feels good, whether you’re in the office or standing over a golf ball.

When I started putting together my golf journals, I realised I was really bringing those same coaching principles onto the golf course. A couple of long-term business clients who have read them said they could recognise my coaching philosophy straight away because it’s the same approach I’ve used with them for years. The game of golf just happens to be a brilliant place to put those ideas into practice.

That’s why I created two guided journals which work side by side. Play With Purpose helps golfers build the mindset and habits that support better golf and, hopefully, a better approach to life as well. Play The Next Shot is all about what happens after things go wrong, because every golfer knows they eventually will.

You can start with either journal or use them together, but they’re both built around the same simple idea which has guided me for years: if you give your absolute best, keep learning and keep showing up for the next shot, you’re already giving yourself the best chance to improve.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT JACQUELINE SMITH'S ABSOLUTE BEST JOURNALS HERE.