Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game

fear system, governed by the amygdala, is like a throw switch or a fire alarm or a default mechanism that is able to override the conscious mind in large part because the cortex (conscious mind) has few dedicated resources or pathways to influence the fear system, while the fear system has a number of resources to dominate the cortex.
    American poet Robert Frost once wrote how poetry “begins with a feeling and finds a thought.” His observations are remarkably insightful because the part of the brain (amygdala) that produces feelings such as fear operates far more quickly than the parts of our brains that process “conscious thought” (cortex). We often feel fear before we can think in a rational way about the thing that produced that fear.

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    words of a champion: ernie els, 2002 british open

    Before golfers can master the game, it is essential that they believe that they can do so. Professional golfers who can’t get used to the idea of seeing themselves on a leaderboard or winning a major championship are unlikely to perform at championship levels. Ernie Els’s goal for the 2002 season was to win at least two of golf’s major championships. After conceding the first two to Tiger Woods, Ernie remained resilient in his pursuit of the third. Whereas most golfers are uncomfortable with the thought of winning a major, Ernie was uncomfortable with the thought of
not
winning a major. When he arrived at Muirfield for the British Open, he wanted and expected to win.

    He had won two U.S. Opens in his career by the time he arrived at the final round of the 2002 British Open at Muirfield, but he was motivated to achieve more in the game. And yet at the same time, on that fateful Sunday, he was afraid he might never get the opportunity.

    Els had entered the final round leading, having survived brutal weather conditions during the third round. He was at the short sixteenth with a one-stroke lead when a poor chip shot led to a double-bogey 5. Down by one now, Els admitted later, “After that I was really almost gone.”

    But Els composed himself, played the par-5 seventeenth terrifically, and made an easy birdie to get himself into a four-man, 4-hole playoff. The roller-coaster turn of events wore on Els, who knew he had to stay composed. He had to find a way to fight the fear of losing. That internal struggle made for the greatest victory of his career.

    “Walking off 16, a lot of things went through my mind,” he said in the press tent afterward. “I was like, ‘Is this a way to lose another major, is this the way you want to be remembered, by screwing up an Open Championship?’ I’m pretty hard on myself as it is, and that wasn’t one of my finer moments.”

    Before the playoff, Els had time to get himself back in focus. What he said to himself in the intermission allowed him to stare down that growing fear, and as he said later, silence that “little man whispering negative thoughts in your ear.”

    “I had four holes to play and those four holes were the most important holes of my career and I was going to give it 100 percent on each and every shot. Somehow I pulled myself together and made some good shots again. I guess I’ve got a little bit of fight in me when it counts.”
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    For instance, when a person sees something threatening such as an aggressive, attacking dog, it takes just a fraction of a second for the amygdala to react. In that fraction of a second, a mixture of chemicals and stress hormones begin bathing the muscles, causing them to tighten. Blood pressure rises, pupils dilate, digestion shuts down, and capillaries constrict, discharging the “fight or flight” response necessary to survival. Almost a full second later, the cortex receives the message, and the person is able to process the word “dog” and to think in rational terms about the situation. Even at low levels, anxiety causes muscle tension, which in turn can lead to tightness in the golf swing and, even worse for a golfer, flinching muscles and twitching eyes.

    Confidence Drill: Eye Test

    The eyes betray fear in many ways. The pupils dilate, and the eyes can flinch under pressure. In putting, you will see this manifest itself when a player starts looking down the line before he’s actually made a stroke. Maybe you can’t eliminate the fear sensation, but what you can do is practice keeping your eyes over the ball well after impact. When I work with players on the putting green, I’ll often shield their