Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game

Students whom the teachers were told had low ability failed to improve. This famous experiment has come to be called “Pygmalion in the Classroom,” and its results the “Pygmalion effect” after George Bernard Shaw’s wonderful story of Eliza Doolittle in his play
Pygmalion
(and subsequently the musical
My Fair Lady
.)
    We all know that people tend to be successful in areas where they expect success and tend to fail in areas where they expect to fail. That mindset is effective in golf as well.
    Of course, high expectations and goals are a direct function of strong self-efficacy in one’s abilities. The lesson is that people in general, and golfers in particular, are usually capable of much, much more than they give themselves credit for. That is the prerequisite for taking your game to the next level (whether that level is breaking 90 or making more birdies). You first have to feel comfortable with the
idea
of being at the next level.
    Research in psychology conclusively shows that performance is enhanced when a person sets goals that are high but achievable, specific rather than vague, and measurable rather than subjective. This is what Annika Sorenstam has learned from her great coach and teacher Pia Nilsson, who was her guide as she grew up on the Swedish national team. Nilsson instilled the idea of specific, powerful goals for each season, each tournament, and in particular, each round of golf. It was Nilsson’s passion “to change the belief structure” so players could stretch their potential to new levels. The keystone of her coaching was an idea she called Vision 54, a belief in the possibility of making birdie on every hole. She once said, “Once one believes in the idea, as Annika does, then it is possible. It is a dream come true to be a coach of a player like her. Annika is always asking questions, and there is a lot of trust between us. When she shot 59, we knew it was one step closer to 54.”
    Such goals provide the motivation to practice, and they provide a standard against which to measure progress. They also keep the mind focused on the task at hand. Golfers with higher self-efficacy tend to set higher goals than do golfers with lower self-efficacy. Think about it: When golfers have equal ability, those with more confidence in that ability typically set higher goals and expect more from themselves. Such expectations will prompt them to work harder and remain more confident in pursuit of those goals. It is not at all uncommon for the interplay of high self-efficacy and challenging goals to trigger a positive self-fulfilling prophecy through which a golfer begins to realize his or her full potential.
    One need look no further than Tiger Woods, who burst onto the scene in 1996 with the goal of winning every professional tournament he entered. Though many experts and media analysts called him arrogant and unrealistic, Tiger was unwavering in his commitment to that goal. He said,

    If I show up at a golf tournament, my number-one goal is just to win. To do whatever it takes to accomplish that, but to win. There’s nothing wrong with having your goals very high and trying to get them. That’s the fun part. You may come up short—I’ve come up short on a lot of my goals—but it’s always fun to try and achieve them. It’s just what I believe. It’s the way I’ve always been.

    His words uncannily mirror those of the man whose records Woods is chasing, Jack Nicklaus. Nicklaus did not rise to the summit of golf by accident or by divine powers. He was of course highly talented, but, by his own admission, not more so than other fine golfers of his day. What set Jack apart was not his skills, but his belief in what he could do with the skills that he had.

    For me it comes down to having belief in myself. And I have always believed in what I can do. Even when I wasn’t playing my best, then I had to root my confidence, not in my shots but in my ability to manage myself and my game. So if I am not out there playing my best golf, I know that. I know what my best golf is and what my best shots are, if I am not hitting the ball perfect I have to figure out how do I take 10 or 15 or 20 percent of my game away and play with the other 80 percent to maximize what I can do. People will say that is negative talk, but it isn’t. It is actually more confidence because once I realized where my game was, I was able to manage it better and play the correct shots, knowing when to take risks and when to be