Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game

surface-to-air missiles shot at him. He didn’t hesitate to tell me that it was “training” that made him successful: “Up there, you just do what you are trained to do.
You don’t really think about it too much. You just do it
.” When you know that you can trust your good habit, you really don’t have to think very hard about what you’re doing.
    When fine-tuned skills are developed in a rigorous and disciplined way, executing them in high-pressure situations becomes far easier. The quality of the performance is always equivalent to the quality of the habit that has been developed in practice.

    changing habits

    There is no doubt but that people have the capacity to change their behavior. Contrary to popular musings, old dogs
can
learn new tricks. Admittedly, however, it is far easier for them to learn those tricks as young pups than as old dogs. If people better understood the basic nature of habits, there would be fewer broken New Year’s resolutions, failed diets, hackers, slicers, shankers, duffers, and people who quit golf out of frustration. Phrases beginning with “I wish I had . . .” would not be so common. As in most spheres of life, in the world of golf, knowledge is power. The golfer who really understands the nature of habits has a distinct advantage, which reminds me of Ben Hogan’s observation: “It really cuts me up to watch some golfer sweating over his shots on the practice tee, throwing away his energy to no constructive purpose, nine times out of ten doing the same thing wrong he did years and years back when he first took up golf.”
    In education we are fond of the old saying that there is a very great difference between ten years’ experience and one year’s experience ten times.
    William James offered several practical maxims about habit:

    1. In acquiring a new habit, or breaking an old one, we must launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible. No half measures are useful in the game of habit making and breaking.

    2. It is critical to never suffer an exception to occur until the new habit is securely rooted.

    3. Every opportunity must be seized to act on the new habit we wish to create. For James, this is a matter of “will,” and will requires the personal conviction to act in firm and prompt and definite ways.

    4. Talk is cheap. It is action that is called for.

    5. It serves us well in developing good habits or breaking bad ones to engage in challenging activities “for no other reason than their difficulty.”

    This book has been about the psychology of golf. Consequently, I have focused on psychological concepts such as goal orientations, self-efficacy beliefs, and attributions. For this reason, let me remind and caution golfers of all levels that psychological processes can be at their most destructive when problematic ways of thinking and feeling become deeply habitual. As I showed earlier, lack of confidence can become a frame of mind; ego-oriented golf can become second nature; making external and uncontrollable attributions can become a regularly occurring affliction.
    Naturally, it is these sorts of psychological habits that I am asked to change when golfers seek my help. The process is sometimes painstaking. It is especially trying when a golfer has permitted the habit to flourish and take root by having ignored it or inappropriately framed the perceived difficulty. A combination of quick attention, self-reflection, and accurate self-perception are nearly always the best ingredients for the beginnings of a cure.

    some closing thoughts and cautions

    To many readers, and certainly to effective golfers, many of the suggestions and implications I have outlined throughout this book may sound like little more than psychological principles grounded in simple common sense. Of course. But permit me two observations. First, good psychology should always be allied to common sense. Second, as Voltaire wrote, common sense is not so common. It’s seldom common practice. But let me go a little further. There is often a fine line between what individuals perceive as common sense and what they have been doing for years, taking for granted that their actions are grounded in common sense and in effective action. Often, these actions reflect the simple repetition of habitual behaviors long established, seldom evaluated, and never questioned.
    The philosopher Bertrand Russell once observed that in all affairs, “it’s a healthy idea, now and then