Simone Biles, Michael Phelps, and Tiger Woods all took a break and they came back stronger.
Australia’s Kristalle Blum last week made the brave decision to take a break from competing.
The 26-year-old from Adelaide, since 2019 has swapped her Australian winters for European summers to compete on the LET Access Series with great success yet now she’s not following the status quo and taking an extended break.
Explaining her decision, the 2022 Golf Vlaanderen LETAS Trophy winner said: “I’m a very confident and positive sort of person, and I’m by no means depressed or down or anything like that.
“Yet in the last probably six to 12 months, I’ve realized how your mental health, can be affected when it comes to tournaments or playing golf. which is why I’ve decided to just give myself a bit more of a break and have a mental reset to sort of work out why I do what I do and to find that real, like love, passion, desire, drive.”
After her self-described “toughest season yet in 2023” Blum returned to Australia knowing she needed time off but battled with still wanting to take the tournament opportunities on the WPGA schedule.
“I just needed to take the extra time which I couldn’t decide on in December when I was kind of going through some of those emotions.
“When I first came home, I knew that I wasn’t ready to play the Aussie Open, but I wasn’t going to pull out of the Australian Open in December.”
Her season started off strong with a T-13 finish on 10-under-par in a mixed gender field at the Webex Players Series Victoria.
Blum led the first two rounds but explained that the scores didn’t reflect what was going on in the background.
“I started the week super excited to get over there and happy to be back in a familiar sort of place at Rosebud.
“I had an afternoon tee time, went through my warmup and routine and had no issues.
“Then about 15 minutes before I was due to be walking to the tee, I had something close to a panic attack. Huge anxiety and my heart were racing. A large amount of adrenaline was pumping through my body.
“I was so concerned about stepping out onto the course. I went out finally and had nine birdies and an eagle and was leading the event by one. What was worse was I was so concerned about the next day. Not being able to pull it off again. It was a great week, but I went back home and had so much anxiety and negative thoughts.”
Deciding to take a break from tournament golf has been an incredibly tough decision for Blum.
In a sport where one season sets up your next, taking a break comes with feelings of guilt.
“I didn’t want to stop and feel like I’ve given up. I didn’t want to take that time to really sort of address how I was feeling. I wanted to play the LET Australia events even though i knew I shouldn’t.
“So, it has taken me a while to get there, and I’d had plans and flights booked for the first five weeks and five events coming up in a few weeks’ time.
“I just ended up deciding to make the call that I needed to take the extra time for me to feel like I was physically and mentally 100%, not just physically kind of there.
“It’s going to be a bit of a change, and I will have to find some things to do to fill in my time but It’s time to find who I am off the course, so I know who I am when I step back on it.”
Hear more about Blum’s journey and her decision on this week’s episode of LETAS CHAT below.
