Golf Flow

and effort (this is the reason why it is often difficult to follow a great round of golf with another great round of golf).
    Thus the paradox: The round itself feels energized and effortless, but afterward players realize how much vigor and effort they used to energize their flow state. The abundance of focus and mental sharpness aligns with physical exactness to produce a result that feels unforced, almost transcendent. Golfers feel at one with their task, and that task, whether it’s putting or swinging, feels as natural as breathing and walking—as easy as “seeing it and doing it.”
    A great deal of preparation goes into setting the stage for flow, but when they are in flow, golfers describe the process as effortless. Flow awakens in people the feeling that, at that particular time, they are capable of anything to which they set their minds. Words like
smooth
,
rhythm
,
calm
, and
natural
abound in descriptions of the effortless sense that flow provides.
    Scott McCarron said, “When I am in flow, golf is effortless. It is unleashed. Smooth power, however you want to call it. It does not look or feel like I am swinging hard, but I am actually hitting it farther.”
    Similarly, 2011 U.S. Open winner Rory McIlroy reflected on a flow state that happened to him when he was 16 years old.
I shot the course record 61 at Portrush when I was 16, so that was a pretty good round. But you know, it was very funny, on the golf course—I can still vividly remember that 61. I can remember nearly every shot. And today I got myself in a very similar state of mind. I don’t know what to call it, call it the zone or whatever you want to—but I was just seeing my shots, I was hitting them. If I put myself in tricky spots; I was getting it up-and-down. I was seeing putts go in. I was reading the lines. It’s pretty cool when it happens because it doesn’t happen often.
    In 2003 14-time PGA Tour winner Kenny Perry shot a 61 in the third round of the Colonial. After the experience he made the following statement:
My rhythm is better this week than I’ve ever had it in my life. I feel like I’m swinging real easy at it and the ball is really going far. And it was just very simple out there for me today. I don’t know, I guess it was what they talk about, the zone thing, and whatever it was, I was in it today. It was just very easy for me today.
    How can we reconcile the conventional wisdom that golf is a brutal, merciless, mind-bogglingly difficult game that gets the best of even the most gifted, diligent golfers in the world with the descriptions of the game provided by players such as Adam Scott, who confessed, “Basically, I was just looking at my target and swinging the club and the ball goes there”? Think about Rory McIlroy’s description of shooting that 61 as being as easy as walking in the park and Kenny Perry’s use of the words
simple
and
easy
to describe the 61 that he shot.
    At this point I hope that I have only slightly confused you. In penetrating the mystery of flow for the past 15 years, I spent many nights feeling somewhat confused as well. But I can tell you that although these paradoxes may seem confusing, if you keep trying to understand the essence of flow, your pursuit will be justified.

Becoming One With the Club
    Consistent with the unforced effort that golfers describe, athletes in flow often report feelings of attachment with their equipment and the tools of their particular trade. For instance, cyclists describe the bike as feeling like an extension of their own bodies, almost like an exoskeleton. For rowers in a regatta, the oar feels like an extension of the body and they can actually feel the water better. Golfers who have been in flow often describe the golf club as being an extension of their hands and arms. Their sense of feel with the club is as sensitive as it is with their own hand.

Even for pros like Keegan Bradley, the sense of effortless effort experienced by golfers in flow comes only after a great deal of conscious, deliberate practice.

    Nick Potts/PA Photos
    If you’ve ever been in flow while playing golf, you are familiar with this phenomenon. You have this overall sensation of being connected to every aspect of the process of playing golf. Everything . . . flows. Your thoughts flow, and various parts of your body—shoulders, arms, torso, legs, hands, eyes—work in unison. Everything, including your equipment, works as a cohesive unit. Although it is crazy to think about