Golf Flow

in front of them. They don’t have the attention or ability to do much more beyond that.
    When golfers seek my help because their once-quiet minds are now full of clutter and confusion, they often talk about having moved from task orientation to self-orientation. Specifically, they report that they used to stand over a shot and be aware only of the shot itself. Whether it was a drive or a putt, the shot itself was what mattered. The shot occupied both their focal and peripheral awareness.
    After a few years of getting emotionally battered and beaten up by the game, golfers stand over those same shots and instead of thinking about hitting a shot at a target, they think of themselves, their lives, and what the outcome of that shot would mean to them (What happens if I don’t pull this off? How will I feel? Will I be embarrassed or frustrated? What do I get if I succeed?) As you might imagine, focusing on the self and the consequences of playing well or poorly rather than on the shot itself does not help anyone consistently hit quality golf shots.
    According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the Hungarian psychology professor widely acknowledged as the architect of the concept of flow, during the flow state these two things—self and task—fuse together so that who you are and what you are doing become one in the same. In certain respects, you become one with what you are doing.

Heightened Concentration
    The flow state is characterized by a seamless marriage of self and task. Golfers in flow are usually aware on some level that they are playing well, but that is as far as their attention to the results or the score tends to go. They are aware of the quality of their play, but their attachment remains weak and vague enough to prevent anxiety. They rarely know their exact score or the exact score of their opponents. In this sense, they lose self-consciousness while increasing self-awareness and awareness of events around them, a feature of flow that Jack Nicklaus captured in the following description.
In the 1960 World Team Championship, you could have fired a cannon between my legs as I stood over a three-foot putt and I would have stroked it right down the heart without missing a beat. My concentration that week was at its peak, and for a very good reason. Every golfer at his or her own level occasionally experiences, usually out of the blue, a spell when everything feels absolutely right—grip, aim, posture, takeaway, backswing, downswing, impact, follow-through . . . and the result is a mind totally free of concerns about technique or ball striking, and therefore a mind applied exclusively to competitive strategy and course management.
    Week in and week out, professional tournaments have different qualifying standards. Some provide sponsor exemptions, whereas others go off money lists, past status, or other various qualifications. In 2003 golfers could qualify for the Tour Championship in only one way—by being in the top 30 on the money list in the week going into the tournament. Thus, the golfers who were in the field of the season-ending tournament were the best in the world. It was, and remains, the most fair and difficult field in the world. Against this field of excellence Chad Campbell put on a virtuous display of golf by shooting a 61 on Saturday, which put him in position to go on and win the tournament the next day. To put this Saturday round of golf into perspective, consider the high quality of the competition and then that the cumulative average of the rest of the field that day was 70. Here is what Chad said about the 61 that he shot in those blistering conditions:
    Reporter: About what hole did 59 start creeping in your mind, or how hard did you try to keep it out of your mind?
    Chad Campbell: I didn’t try. I really was telling the guys outside, it sounds funny, but I never really knew exactly how many under I was. I knew obviously I was playing good, but it doesn’t really matter. I kept trying to hit good golf shots and keep making birdies. When it’s going good you just try to stay out of your own way. You’re hitting the shots and making the putts. The worst thing you can do is start thinking about it and just start playing safe. Only bad things can happen then.
    Reporter: So when did you find out you were leading?
    Chad Campbell: I don’t even know. I guess when I went in the booth or after that. I don’t really know. I wasn’t paying attention. I was kind of focusing on my own game and