The 'Bounce Back' Muscle
Written by Gary Blumberg
April 29, 2025
Resilience:
Some Context
Alongside the pursuit and realization of his dream with his Masters win, Rory McIlroy places significant stock in his ability to ‘bounce back,’ – his resilience.
- He highlights how proud he is of it, mentioning it several times.
- He alerts us to the accountability that goes with it.
- And he also hints at it being something you need to work at.
And he appreciates fully, as we do, that without this resilience, he wouldn’t have his Green Jacket.
Resilience:
Rory’s Message in a Nutshell
- We will always have to face challenges.
- Those challenges may sometimes result in setbacks or losses.
- The most important thing is how you respond to those challenges and setbacks.
- Take pride in your ability to be resilient and respond positively – to ‘bounce back’ – it will serve you well.
Resilience:
Our Best Practice’s Takeaways
For our purposes, resilience can be read as the ability ‘to withstand, adapt, respond to, and then rebound from setbacks, disappointments and adversity.’
This is how Rory is applying the concept.
It is one of the elements of what we understand as the ‘mental toughness’ of an athlete.
But there is another feature, and an often-underrated component to resilience, which is ‘the capacity to recover quickly.’
And Rory implies that in the way he discusses it.
The resilience model that he has honed, enables him to respond immediately. Crucially, he realised that it was in his locus of control, and he reacts in a way that doesn’t allow the adversity to extend or linger.
What Rory understands keenly, is that resilience is a muscle:
- you need to be present to know when it is needed
- you can practice it and improve it
- and you can refine it.
While it doesn’t guarantee anything, it gives us the best chance of favourable outcomes or results.
He has intimate knowledge of the disappointments he’s had to face in his career.
He also appreciates that in every golf round there will be setbacks, some of your own making and some that are beyond your control.
In golf, the next shot is moments away – there’s an immediate opportunity to recover.
Then there’s the next hole, and that’s a whole new challenge and opportunity as well.
And when that round is over, the next round you play represents a new set of moments to create and react to.
In that way it becomes an apt metaphor for day-to-day obstacles.
The question is not whether we are going to face adversity at some point – it is an inevitability of life – but rather how we choose to react and respond that will count.
And by expressing his pride in his resilience, he reminds us that it’s a skill to value and nurture.
Resilience:
What’s Next?
Rory has built his resilience framework over his lifetime, not only in golf.
At Augusta this year, this template withstood one of the most pressurised and challenging arenas he has ever endured; and that is a powerful validation for him.
He will have to use that resilience muscle again, but he knows it is now stronger for him than it ever has been.
The next segment of Rory’s Masters Pieces: “Approaching Challenges” will be available soon.
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The next segment of Rory’s Masters Pieces: “Approaching Challenges” will be available soon.
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