Golf Flow

filters of experience, and it is in this area that expert performance will make strides in the coming years.
    The implications of the connection between mind-set, or beliefs, and behavior for golfers are many. First, they can learn to disengage from results and exercise vast amounts of patience and composure. For example, when we interpret a bogey as a negative experience, a corresponding physiological effect naturally occurs. The brain sends signals for the body to create stress hormones such as cortisol. Cortisol leads to stress and tension. Stress and tension compromise our ability to swing the club. Conversely, if we are able to exercise the mental discipline to interpret a bogey as just part of golf, to accepting the bogey or laugh at it, we won’t get the corresponding doses of cortisol that lead to the levels of stress and tension that compromise our performance on subsequent shots.
    In this way the ideas and beliefs that a golfer chooses to construct about the game really do matter. Those beliefs have corresponding physical and physiological consequences. Letting go of overcontrol boils down to trusting that the practice you are doing will ultimately produce greater efficiency and better results. Notice that I said “ultimately.” Focusing on results in the short term and expecting too much too soon can throw us off the path of improvement. Because a lag effect occurs between practice and the brain’s ability to integrate that practice into a behavioral repertoire, golfers often lose confidence when they don’t get immediate results in all areas. I can think of no surer path to self-destruction and deterioration.
    Historically, coaches have talked about having faith, having confidence, or believing in themselves. The only thing required is a little patience and understanding of the lag effect of myelination and skill development. After you understand that good habits will show up eventually, remaining patient becomes easier; in golf, the more you can remain patient, the less likely you are to interrupt your habits and ability to get into flow. For instance, Sean O’Hair and I had been working on teaching him how to play patient golf. Before the 2011 season, he knew that impatience was interrupting his ability to play well. But knowing that something is a problem is often a far stretch from knowing how to fix that problem. Knowing
that
and knowing
how
are cousins rather than siblings.
    Only after a full year of consistently practicing patience with the same discipline that he practiced his wedge game and putting was Sean finally able to say that he played four full days of patient golf. By practicing patience independent of results for a full year, Sean was finally able to accept his shots, maintain his rhythm, keep his focus, see his targets with clarity, and have his brain work with him rather than against him in the pursuit of great golf. The result was a T2 at the 2012 Sony Open in Hawaii, a tournament that Sean described as “unrushed, patient, almost easy.” The most important aspect of that tournament occurred when he started his third round with a double bogey and proceeded to be three over par through five holes. He used those bogeys as an opportunity to remind himself of the importance of staying patient and of not forcing anything in golf. He settled into the rhythm of his routine and made six birdies coming in for an outstanding finish. Although not all of us have it in us to birdie 6 of our last 12 holes, we can still learn a great lesson: Handling your adversity with the calm patience of the Buddha keeps your mind and body in balance, and that balance enables good golf to follow bad scores.

Developing Patience and Trust
    The departure from being a results-oriented golfer to becoming a patient, process-oriented golfer requires more than a quick talk with a mind coach. Because patience applies to all areas of life, becoming a patient human being often requires a full philosophical shift in how we view ourselves, how we view other people, and what our values are when it comes to life itself. My golfers who practice patience not only think about their golf swings and routines but also consider golf in the larger realm of life. My golfers read Gracian, Kierkegaard, Aristotle, and Plato. They consider the fundamental questions in life and the way in which they flow into golf. They meditate on the Greek concepts of eudaemonia and arête—happiness and living an excellent life. In the final