Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game

think, to weed the weak people out. Nobody has good times all the time, so get up and fight! Show me some courage! Show me some patience. Show me some determination, for goodness sake!”

    Being from South Africa in the era of apartheid, Player was often heckled by spectators who would charge at him through the ropes and throw ice and even phonebooks during his backswing. But he would not be denied. He won 163 times in his playing career. He won nine major titles and is one of only five golfers to win the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship at least once. He was named to the World Golf Hall of Fame. And all of those accomplishments started with a commanding sense of self-efficacy.

    “On a scale of 1 to 100, I’d say my confidence was usually a 105!” he said to me recently.

    Ha! I think that has been my greatest asset. Like when I won the British Open at Carnoustie in 1968. I wasn’t playing well until 10:30 the night before the first round of the Championship. I was on the practice tee at 10:30, and then I found something. I found something! And I went out and won the tournament. I found it at the last moment—at the last moment—because I believed that despite my troubles and woes, I would find it. I refused to lose my self-confidence, and you have to continue to believe, because if you don’t have the confidence, no one is going to give it to you. They are going to try to take it away from you. So even when I am not hitting the ball well, I always tell myself, “It can change at any moment. Hang in there!”
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    In summarizing his findings on the relationship between self-efficacy and performance, noted educator and self-efficacy researcher Frank Pajares once explained that

    self-efficacy is as much about learning how to succeed as it is about learning how to persist and persevere when you do not succeed. Self-efficacy does not provide the skills required to succeed; it provides the effort, perseverance, and adaptive thought patterns required to obtain those skills. Thus we make a very great mistake when we endeavor to prevent people from failing. Failure, after all, is the price we pay for success. Our efforts are better aimed at helping individuals learn how to fail when failure is unavoidable.

    Setbacks and disappointments are unavoidable, especially in golf, so the golfer who allows bad times to mire him in worry and frustration will ultimately limit his potential. Developing the beliefs necessary to patiently and optimistically deal with failure is a key ingredient to ultimate success.
    The great misconception of many beginning golfers is that failing will somehow lessen or embarrass them (the mark of an ego golfer). For them, failure is something to be avoided at all costs. Yet, when I interviewed some of the top golfers on the PGA Tour, I discovered that they consistently not only welcomed failure but invariably pushed themselves sufficiently hard so they could discover their limits. These models of success viewed every challenge simply as an obstacle to overcome, as another mountain to climb, and they held on to the firm belief that failure signified that they were pushing themselves sufficiently hard. Consistent with Robert Kennedy’s observation that “only those willing to fail greatly can achieve greatly,” their mastery approach allowed them to view golf as a constant learning experience, and failure as an inevitable part of that learning and a crucial ingredient to the process of improvement. They would heartily agree with renowned author Samuel Beckett’s observation, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
    Rather than ignore obstacles or try to somehow remove them from the mind, self-efficacy gives golfers the means to effectively acknowledge and overcome the obstacles that accompany any round of golf. And as golfers know, obstacles come in all forms. Psychological obstacles are as real as mechanical or physical or financial ones. Self-efficacious golfers find the means to succeed when their putting stinks, when their short game goes south, or when, as happened to Greg Norman, miracle shots from other players make success nearly unattainable. In other words, golfers with a fully established sense of self do not see misfortune and bad breaks and tough times as evidence of circumstances overwhelming their chances at success. Rather, they stand self-assured in believing that they control the results with their