Natalie Gulbis, Team USA Solheim Cup member, LPGA Tour Champion, defines excellence

Define Excellence

That’s a very good question. For me, excellence would be to pursue each of my goals in an excellent way. And to pursue them by giving 100 percent and making sure I did everything I could to be successful and reach those goals.

Excellence is more than just winning. There’s much more than the result when it comes to achieving excellence. For example, you look at Adam Scott when he won The Masters. Adam Scott has been trying to win The Masters since the first time I met him at the Butch Harmon School of Golf 10 years ago. He has been planning shots that would one day get him the green jacket. He has been pursuing that goal in a very profound way for many years so excellence is much more than winning. It is the continual process and striving for that excellence.

Staying Motivated

It’s much harder of a commitment to actually do it than to talk about achieving excellence. To stay motivated, I set goals. I have weekly goals, monthly goals, and long term goals. And I have a great team around me and we talk about the goals and we are very open about those goals. It is important to be open and honest with everyone about what’s going on and about what happened last week that can help me this week. And after I came back from being sick, my goals were much different at my first tournament back different than just winning the tournament. I struggled to just get through the tournament so my personal goal was a bit different that week and I had things I was just trying to get through on a personal level. What motivates me is to set the goals.

Inspiration

My favorite quote was that “You can’t direct the wind, but you can adjust your sail.” It was a quote my parents put on a big banner on my door growing up and I will always remember that. It was a perfect quote because it had a golf element to it because there are so many different conditions on the golf course and so many different challenges off the golf course with traveling and injuries to moving luggage and everything that goes along with being on Tour. So you have to adjust and continue to move forward. That is a quote that I have always enjoyed.

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