When observing a group of golfers, you’ll frequently hear them celebrate a shot another player made. But something is interesting about the choice that is being made.

The criterion for the celebration is the result, rarely the shot itself. Consequently, the shots that don’t seem to deliver the expected result will often be deplored or acknowledged with silence.

Some players will only measure their shots by the result. But there is more to a shot. Depending on their attitude and objective, players can easily experience three variants of great shots.

There are the ones the player imagined and executes as he had planned them. Most of the time, they are perceived as great shots by the player and his surroundings.

Some shots have nothing to do with the players’ intentions but that still leads to a great shot performance. It often is clear to the ones watching that it wasn’t a planned shot, but they cheer as they are in awe of the chance the player had.

Then there are also those shots where the player can feel how good that shot was. It’s a moment of recognition of how well he played the ball but also that the shot didn’t achieve what the player had imagined. Others will usually deplore the bad luck of that shot.

It highlights a useful question: is satisfaction measured by outcome, social validation, or one’s own evaluation? They will not always be aligned.