Even the best want to get better

Unless you're into chess, you probably don't know Wesley So. He is currently ranked second in the world, and from July 2016 until April 2017 didn't lose a single game of chess. Nonetheless, I was struck by what he said at the end of an interview on YouTube: "I still have a lot to improve upon."

Again, this guy is the second best in the entire world. In the six months before he said that, he had won two of the strongest tournaments in the world plus the United States championship. And yet he is still trying to get better.

But here's someone you probably have heard of no matter what you're into: Tiger Woods. I recently came across his newest book, The 1997 Masters: My Story by Tiger Woods and Lorne Rubenstein where he goes into his life before his breakthrough tournament, breaks down each day of it into a chapter of its own, then muses about his life afterward.

One of the striking things in it was that Tiger wasn't satisfied even after becoming the youngest person ever to win the Masters and having done it by such a huge margin of victory. After winning that major tournament, he was exempted from having to qualify for the next ten years. The next year, that rule was changed to five years, so when Mark O'Meara won it in 1998, he only got a five-year exemption.

That meant Tiger could relax for a while and no longer have to scratch and fight and work his tail off to be the best, since no matter what he would be able to play on the pro tour for a decade. That ten-year exemption was an opportunity to enjoy the fruits of all the hard work that got him there; a time he could use to go on autopilot and cruise along. But here's what Tiger said about the chance to get lazy:

[T]o have a job for ten years? That security? That was huge. It was a nice gift, a gift that [O'Meara] didn't get. If the Masters winner still got the ten years, he would have been exempt until he was eligible for the Champions Tour.... He would have to play a full schedule to make sure he did as well as possible and keep his status. [He] couldn't pick and choose the tournaments to play in. Meanwhile, I got peace of mind from having those ten years. I could take the time required to improve or even change my swing, if I wanted to. And I did want to, even after winning the Masters by twelve shots.
[The 1997 Masters: My Story, page 173, emphasis mine.]

Not everyone thought that was a good idea. After all, the swing he already had was good enough for him to dominate a field of the world's best golfers. Why would he take the risk of rebuilding what worked so well? Tiger responded to those critics:

I was criticized widely for wanting to change a swing that had won the Masters so decisively. But I didn't care that I had won by twelve shots, or that there was so much criticism. I knew what I needed to do, [coach] Butchie knew what I needed to do, and above all, I wanted to do it. I thrived on working on my swing. I was addicted to staying on the range for hours. A typical practice day for me was hitting six hundred balls, working on my short game and putting, playing, sometimes on my own, and working out in the gym for two or three hours. That was the life I wanted. I fed off the crowds at Augusta, and I was grateful for the support I got there, especially on Sunday as [my caddy] Fluff and I walked along. But I would have played the Masters with nobody there and with no hardware on the line.

We went to work. I wore myself out on the range, but I loved working so hard on my swing. I've always enjoyed spending hours and hours on the range, or studying film of my swing. It's been for one objective: to get the most out of myself. I wasn't in the game for the trophies. I was in it to find the answer to one question: How good can I be? [176-77]

All the work he put in gave him a pretty good answer: he would win 13 more major tournaments after that first Masters victory, spend over 13 years ranked #1, and the list of his other accomplishments alone has its own Wikipedia entry that is much longer than this entire post.

There is always something we could do to get better at whatever it is we do. I still strive to become a better aviator every day, even though there is no higher level of certificate to attain as an ATP. What does it mean to get better as an airline pilot? I'll go into that next week. Until then, see you next Wednesday!

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The author is an airline pilot, flight instructor, and adjunct college professor teaching aviation ground schools. He holds an ATP certificate with ERJ-145 and DHC-8 type ratings, as well as CFI, CFII, MEI, AGI, and IGI certificates, and is a Master-level participant in the FAA's WINGS program and a former FAASafety Team representative. He is on Facebook as Larry the Flying Guy, has a Larry the Flying Guy YouTube channel, and is on Twitter as @Lairspeed.

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