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Motivation Quote by Mike Weir

"A lot of my buddies also played golf, but when it came to going to the beach or on the boat and chasing girls, they usually went that way and I went to the golf course"

About this Quote

Weir frames the origin story every pro athlete is supposed to have, then undercuts it with something more awkward and revealing: discipline as a kind of social refusal. The setup is pure adolescence - buddies, beach, boat, chasing girls - a buffet of easy status. His punchline is the split-screen choice: they go toward pleasure and belonging; he goes toward solitude and repetition. It lands because it doesnt pretend the golf course was more fun. It was a different bet.

The intent is quietly justificatory. Weir isnt just explaining how he got good; hes defending a personality trait that can look, in the moment, like missing out. Golf, especially in the pre-social-media 80s and 90s, is an antispectacle grind: range sessions, lonely rounds, incremental gains you cant flex at a party. By placing it against the classic teenage pursuits, Weir turns practice into a moral decision without preaching. He signals seriousness, but also a mild bewilderment at his own wiring.

The subtext is about masculine scripts. His friends chase girls; he chases control. In a culture that often equates young male success with conquest, Weir admits he opted for competence - for the one arena where results are measurable and rejection is impersonal. That choice reads less like saintliness than self-selection: a kid who found safety, identity, and maybe even affection in the quiet certainty of a scorecard.

Context matters: Weir became a national outlier, a Canadian who won the Masters. This line retrofits that improbability into a familiar logic: greatness is built on the afternoons you didnt spend being normal.

Quote Details

TopicSports
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More Quotes by Mike Add to List
Mike Weir on choosing golf over summer distractions
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About the Author

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Mike Weir (born May 12, 1970) is a Athlete from Canada.

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