Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game

scorecard as their opponent or the esteem of their buddies or the admiration of those looking down from the clubhouse above the eighteenth green. Consequently, the well-traveled sports cliché that it is easier to chase than to lead is one that ego athletes understand all too well. Ego golfers have difficulty immersing themselves in the moment because their minds are preoccupied with the reaction to the shot rather than with the shot itself.

    can i be both mastery
and ego oriented?

    It is important to note that these different orientations—mastery and ego—are not independent of each other. One can be motivated to win a major championship, enjoy recognition from valued colleagues, and
still
be mastery oriented. Differences in achievement orientations are always
differences of degree
. Everyone has it in them to be mastery or ego oriented at certain times. The key factor in achievement orientations that influence golf outcomes is how strongly golfers relate to each orientation, and in fact, every competitive person who works in a domain where excellence gets recognized is forced to deal with these issues. As a general rule, it is better in any achievement endeavor to be more mastery and less ego oriented because ego orientations often paralyze performers with the fear that their performance will not be good enough (i.e.,
stage fright
).
    Research in psychology has revealed that a mastery orientation fosters deeper processing of information, generates better concentration, leads to more enjoyment, and ultimately to higher levels of motivation and achievement. A mastery orientation frees golfers’ minds from the worries that their performance won’t be good enough, that they’ll look foolish if they make mistakes, or that they will disappoint someone if they can’t perform at the level expected from them. Questions like “How will I look if I miss this?” don’t trigger apprehension or anxiety simply because they are not relevant to the goals of mastering their task and enjoying the process.

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    the pga tour’s most important statistic

    The most interesting golf statistic to the psychological observer is the “bounce back” statistic that the PGA Tour keeps. Bounce back measures the times a golfer follows a bogey or worse with a birdie on the following hole. In 2000, a year in which he won three majors, Tiger’s bounce-back statistic was an amazing 36.8 percent. Better than one of every three times he made a bogey on a hole, he followed it up with a birdie on the next hole. In his nine seasons as a pro, Tiger has averaged better than 25 percent in the bounce-back category, finishing in the top twelve in the final statistics six times and winning the category outright twice. Greatness isn’t about your makes, it’s about your misses, and the number-one player in the world freely acknowledges as much, writing in
Golf Digest
,

    I’ve hit a variety of snipes, quacks, and shrimps in my lifetime, and if I continue to play I’ll hit plenty more. I realize that a poor shot is just a swing away. I also realize that, once I’ve hit a poor shot my only recourse is to hit a better shot on the next swing. In other words, I’ve learned to hit it and forget it. There’s no sense dwelling on a mistake. You can’t hit the shot again, so forget about it.

    When adversity serves as a trigger for immediate recovery, that is psychological bounce back at its best.
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    Mastery oriented golfers do not typically see golf as a competition between themselves and other players. Rather, they focus on playing a golf course the way that the golf course needs to be played. This is a small but highly important psychological distinction. Trying to play against other golfers and trying to play a golf course is like playing entirely different sports. Each comes with its own psychological consequences. When asked if competing against Byron Nelson or Sam Snead made him a better golfer, Ben Hogan responded, “I never felt any competitive urge of one person against the other. We all played tournaments and tried to do the best we could every time we played.”
    It is for these reasons that I constantly remind the golfers with whom I work that they need to be mastery focused. I try to teach them:

    1. You
are not
playing against a score.

    2. You
are not
playing against a tournament.

    3. You
are not
playing against other players.

    4. You
are
playing a golf course, one shot at a time, the best way you know how.

    Golfers with a