Golf Flow

because I steer them away from mistakes, but because I teach them how to learn the right lessons from the mistakes that they make. In this way, my golfers tend to improve over time. Because this belief is foundational to their mind-set, they are able to shed the emotional baggage that accompanies the game of golf and stay relatively positive, happy, balanced, and motivated about the game.
    Nowhere in the psychological spectrum is the distance between knowing and doing as vast as the gulf between mastery golf and ego golf. Most golfers leave my Fearless Golf Academies feeling charged up about playing mastery golf. Frequently, they go on to play much better golf in a short time. That said, they also frequently acknowledge that they struggle to flip the switch from ego golf back to the mastery golf that they enjoyed in their youth.
    This difficulty is understandable for the simple reason highlighted by prominent self-concept researcher Herbert Marsh (1994) in an article titled “The Importance of Being Important.” Marsh and other self-concept researches have argued that we all have an innate need to develop a self-concept that we can be proud of. Certainly, playing good golf puts us in good stead in front of our friends and peers. But this human need to be proud of ourselves sets the stage for the internal conflict and resistance to mastery golf. Those who are able to win this battle tend to play freer and more fearless golf. Those who attach their identity to their golf scores often play with the fear of damaging that identity.
    The reality is that all people have it in them to be both mastery and ego oriented to various degrees. The key thing is to find the healthy balance that works for you, knowing that you will be better on some days than others and not beating yourself up too much on the days that you fail to achieve pure mastery.

A Tale of Two Golfers
    I am often asked why I don’t just buy into the fact that some golfers have “it” and some don’t. And I am frequently challenged on my opinion that talent is overrated in golf. To address these doubters, I ask them to ponder the following example. See whether it convinces you that you can immunize yourself against adversity.
    Suppose that two 10-year old golfers live in parallel universes. Golfer A undergoes five positive experiences per day. In other words, throughout a given day, that golfer takes the time to practice gratitude, to identify a positive thought, to energize his or her mind with small goals, and to engage the people in his or her life with encouragement. At the end of the day, golfer A takes time to review the day and identify things that he or she has learned.
    Now imagine that golfer B generates five negative experiences per day. Golfer B begins the day complaining, criticizes breakfast or lunch, and replays bad shots from the previous day. Rather than learning anything that could propel him or her forward, golfer B mentally checks out and passively winds down the day in front of the television.
    You can classify positive learning experiences as cutting across areas of learning. As I tell my golfers, it doesn’t matter how, or about what, we are learning and improving so long as we are learning and improving. Eventually our lessons will converge, and we will become better. Thus, during our routine exercises, I ask them what they’ve learned about golf, about parenting, about their physical and spiritual health—anything to keep the positive momentum of life.
    Over a given year, golfer A will have had 1,825 positive and growth-enhancing experiences. Golfer B will have had 1,825 negative, suppressive experiences, resulting in a total disparity of 3,650 experiences. When you extrapolate these events out over five years, the disparity between learning useful, encouraging lessons and learning unhelpful, discouraging lessons becomes even more severe: 9,125 positive experiences for golfer A and 9,125 negative experiences for golfer B, a disparity of 18,250 experiences.
    Before reading any further, take a minute to ponder the effects of this disparity. After you do this, you can better understand why great golfers aren’t born and why a golfer like Matt Kuchar has been able to think his way into the upper echelon of golf. Consider whether you are ready to begin to change your perspective, your golf game, and your life.
    On the eternal timeline, having the proper mind-set tends to be more important than talent in golf. While innate traits