I love golf -- both playing and watching the pros -- so you can imagine my delight when my wife, Carol Ann, surprised me for my birthday with a trip to watch the Ryder Cup in Glasgow, Scotland, in late September. What a memorable experience, one that's been on my bucket list for a long time. The only thing that would have made it better would have been a victory for the USA!

Along with the spectacular scenery and outstanding golf, the thing that struck me most was the focus of all the players.

It's easy to have focus when everything is going well, but great athletes keep their focus when they are staring at defeat. A sure way to fail is to lose focus.

I remember when my close friend Lou Holtz was asked to speak to the American team at the 2008 Ryder Cup by then-captain Paul Azinger. Holtz told the players to remember the acronym WIN, which stands for "What's Important Now."

Holtz told the American athletes to evaluate the past but focus on the future. If you just made a bogey, what's important now? Your next tee shot. If you make a birdie, what's important now? Your next tee shot. You play one shot at a time and stay focused.

He finished by telling the players to enjoy the competition and what they were doing, but to stay focused. That team won, the last time the U.S. team brought home the Ryder Cup.

I watched Holtz do the same with many of the football teams he coached: Minnesota, Notre Dame and South Carolina. As Holtz said, think only about the next play or point, not what just happened. You can only focus on what will happen next. Don't look back and don't complain. If you maintain your focus on the future, anything can happen.

Years ago, when I played golf for the University of Minnesota, my coach, Les Bolstad, drove home a similar point about focus. I remember practicing and getting ready for the NCAA Golf Championship Tournament at Purdue University. Les told me to focus on each shot as if it were going to be my last. I would say to myself, "This is the last drive I'm ever going to hit, so it better be good. This is the last putt that I'm ever going to make," and so on.

I've carried that philosophy through to my work life. "This is the last speech I'm ever going to give, so it better be good. This is the last book I'm ever going to write ... This is the last acquisition I'm ever going to make. "

It takes that kind of focus to succeed. I'm convinced that one of the top things that keep people from getting what they want is lack of focus. People who focus on what they want to achieve, prosper; those who don't, struggle.

Forbes Magazine recently did a story on the nine habits of productive people. One of them was focus, specifically using your morning to focus on yourself and ignore the demands of other people.

I couldn't agree more. I make my to-do list every morning by working backward: What do I need to accomplish by the end of the day, week and month? That tells me where to focus.

But what about getting your work team focused on the right goals? The Change Management website offers this simple test: Ask everyone in your group what the organization's mission is, how it affects their jobs and how they contribute to it.

If a significant percentage can't provide a persuasive answer, you need to either communicate your mission more consistently and effectively, or change it so people understand their roles better. A business can't succeed without a common focus.

This idea predates modern business culture, as evidenced by this old fable: A martial arts student approached his teacher with a question. "I'd like to improve my knowledge of the martial arts. In addition to learning from you, I'd like to study with another teacher in order to learn another style. What do you think of this idea?"

The master answered, "The hunter who chases two rabbits catches neither one."

Mackay's Moral: Stay focused on one thing. Trying to get everything will get you nothing.

If you want to excel at anything in life, you need to be committed. If you only want to be good enough to get by, then a commitment to excellence is not necessary. If you are committed to a cause, you don't need to tell anyone. They can tell from your actions.

I often wonder how people can be happy or at peace with themselves if they don't make a commitment to something, whether it be succeeding at work or improving a skill. How do you reconcile expecting desired results without giving an honest effort to be the best you can be?

I know that if you go into any endeavor and say you will give it a try to see if it works, your half-hearted effort will probably fail.

Alan Page, Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive tackle and Minnesota Supreme Court justice, said: "I grew up with the sense that if you're going to do something in life, do your best. When I was growing up, I didn't know what I wanted to be, what I would do, but I do remember being told, 'If you're going to be a garbage man, be the best garbage man you can be.' That stuck. If it's important to you and you want to be successful, there is only one person you can look at as being responsible for success or failure. That's you."

Wanting something and actually making a commitment to getting it are two different things. Your goals may be big and worthy, but do you have the passion to see them through? Success starts with a road map and a strategy; that's just the beginning. You must be prepared to see the action plan through -- making a commitment to get to the finish line.

To determine whether you are honestly prepared to make a commitment, Rosabeth Moss Kanter of the Harvard Business School suggests testing yourself with these questions:

-- Do you feel strongly about the importance of your goal -- why it's necessary to achieve?

-- Does your idea match your values and beliefs?

-- Is this something you've dreamed about for a long time?

-- Is your goal vital to the future of people you care about?

-- Does your goal get you excited when you think about it and share it with others?

-- Is it realistic? Are you sincerely convinced that your goal can be achieved?

-- Are you willing to put your credibility on the line for it?

-- Can you make your goal the primary focus of your activities?

-- Are you willing to devote your personal time -- evenings, weekends, vacations -- to bringing your goal to reality?

-- Will you be able to reject criticism and negativity?

-- Are you committed to the long term as you work toward your goal?

If you can answer yes to those questions, your chances for success improve dramatically. It's the difference between wanting and succeeding.

NBA star LeBron James, four-time league MVP, NBA champion and Olympic gold medalist, has made a commitment to playing his best and in being a good citizen both on and off the court.

James sums it up this way: "Commitment is a big part of what I am and what I believe. How committed are you to winning? How committed are you to being a good friend? To being trustworthy? To being successful? How committed are you to being a good father, a good teammate, a good role model? There's that moment every morning when you look in the mirror: Are you committed, or are you not?"

If you still doubt the importance of commitment, consider this story.

At 6:50 p.m., as evening fell in Mexico City in 1968, John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania painfully hobbled into the Olympic stadium -- the last man to finish the punishing marathon race. The victory ceremony for the winning runner was long over and the stadium was almost empty as Akwari – his leg bloody and bandaged -- struggled to circle the track to cross the finish line.

Watching from a distance was Bud Greenspan, a documentary filmmaker famous for his Olympic movies. Intrigued, Greenspan walked over to the exhausted Akwari and asked why he had continued the grueling run to the finish line.

The young man from Tanzania did not have to search for an answer. He said: "My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race. They sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race."

Mackay's Moral: Commit or quit ... it's up to you.

I've been writing this nationally syndicated column for 21 years now, and it seems that the Mackay's Morals I create for each one really stick with the readers. Every three years, I dedicate a whole column to some of my most memorable morals:

-- No one is as important as all of us.

-- Gratitude should be a continuous attitude.

-- Killing time isn't murder; it's suicide.

-- Hidden talents don't have to be huge, but the results can be.

-- Open a book ... open your mind.

-- Life is a lot easier if you always play by the rules.

-- We all have to grow up, but we never have to get old.

-- Corporate integrity begins with personal integrity.

-- "We" is a little word that sends a big message.

-- People don't care how much you know about them once they realize how much you care about them.

-- The most successful managers aim at making themselves unnecessary to their staff.

-- Critical thinking is critical to success.

-- The only person who can put limits on your imagination is you.

-- It's not enough to know what. You must also know how.

-- Your mind is your most powerful ally in developing confidence.

-- If you go the extra mile, you will almost always beat the competition.

-- Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing to do.

-- There is one thing more contagious than enthusiasm, and that is the lack of enthusiasm.

-- A student of life considers the world a classroom.

-- People are judged by the company they keep. Companies are judged by the people they keep.

-- If seeing is believing, visualizing is achieving.

-- Creativity, not necessity, is the true mother of invention.

-- They say a word to the wise is sufficient, but I say a word from the wise is a gift!

-- If you don't climb the mountain, you can't see the view.

-- There is no such thing as a final offer.

-- An old dog can learn new tricks, and a new dog can learn old tricks.

-- Failure is not falling down but staying down.

-- Customer service is not a department, it's everyone's job.

-- Saying you're sorry and showing you're sorry are not the same thing.

-- Exercise your brain so your memory doesn't get flabby.

-- An ounce of commitment is worth pounds of promises.

-- Most people strive to be better off, but few strive to be better.

-- If you want to make your mark, sharpen your skills.

-- Everyone wants to win, but most people are not willing to prepare to win.

-- The fool asks the wise for advice, but the wise ask the experienced.

-- Pride is the stone over which many people stumble.

-- Control your life or it will control you.

-- The hardest part of the sale is selling yourself to your customer.

-- Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't.

-- To get what you've never had, you must do what you've never done.

-- You'll never lose credibility if you share the credit.

-- Happiness can be thought, taught and caught -- but not bought.

-- Failure isn't final unless you say it is.

-- People aren't strangers if you've already met them. The trick is to meet them before you need their help.

-- We may not be able to predict the future, but we can prepare for it.

-- A plan isn't a plan until you have a backup plan.

-- Taking your time can sometimes be the best use of your time.

-- If a business knows what's good for it, it knows what's good for a customer.

-- You can't get ahead if you don't get started.

-- Worrying casts a dark shadow that blocks any glimmer of hope.

-- The best way to sound like you know what you're talking about is to know what you're talking about.

-- Stay on your toes or fall flat on your face.

-- You'll never reach your goal if you don't have one.

-- Start every day/year with a healthy dose of vitamin C -- Creativity.

-- Taking care of employees is taking care of business.

-- Lots of people start, but few people finish.

Mackay's Moral: (one more time) The smarter I get, the more I realize I'm not finished learning.