Golf Flow

game in a manner that is frustrating to them. What is interesting to me is how frequently golfers turn away from the exact experiences that have the greatest potential to make them better. This idea is important for you to hear, so let me say it a different way: Golfers frequently actively avoid the very experiences that can make them better. Instead, they prefer to find their answers in the easy, obvious, or convenient places. To give an example, in 2010 I met a golfer who was not patient. His self-assessments spoke to the fact that he didn’t consider himself patient or able to play a mature round of golf. “If I do nothing else this year but become more patient on the golf course, it will have been a good year,” he said to me.
    Although he recognized that he wasn’t patient, he exhibited a different pattern in his game when his wedge play began to deteriorate. Specifically, despite hours of practice, he was not hitting his wedges close in tournaments. Imagine a golfer who refines his game to such a level that he’s able to do the “difficult” parts of the game well. He is able to drive the ball long and straight, to flush long irons close to the pin, and to shape the ball with different flights in different weather conditions. When faced with a standard wedge shot from 50 yards (45 m), however, he can’t seem to hit it close no matter what he tries. After rounds of golf, he laments his poor wedge play, and finally, when he can take no more, he loses his patience for the last time.
    This point is critical for this golfer because now that he has lost his patience, he is going to practice his wedges, but he is going to do it with a sense of urgency, a sense of desperation. He will practice with quickness and tension—the very opposite of patience. This golfer is impatiently trying to improve his wedges, not realizing that the weakness in his wedges is an opportunity to improve the other part of his game that is failing—his patience. What this golfer doesn’t realize is that the problems in his wedge game are exactly the opportunity presented by the game that would enable him to improve his patience. If only he would look at it that way.
    During our first conversation, this golfer told me of his impatience. A few calls later, he called me in a heated state of mind, impatiently railing against his poor wedge play. “Can’t you see,” I asked, “that the game is giving you exactly what you need to improve? The game is doing you a favor, giving you something that tests your patience. This is a great opportunity to improve!” He didn’t want to hear it. “So,” he asked bluntly, “tell me what to do to hit my wedges closer.” I replied, “To hit your wedges closer, you have to get better at not hitting your wedges closer. You have to respond to your adversity with patience. You have to accept.”
    I did not hear from this golfer again for six months, when the game of golf had finally backed him into such a corner that he was on the verge of losing his Tour card. When he finally bought into the idea that adversity was something to value rather than lament, his game began to turn around almost immediately. So it goes with the game of golf.

Viewing Setbacks as Feedback
    Setbacks (which I ask my golfers to interpret as feedback from the game) are a key ingredient in the recipe of improvement. Although results are no doubt important, the process of continual learning and improvement has to be considered an integral part of any golfer’s development. Too much focus on results interrupts this process. Too much focus on results forces golfers to exchange long-term improvement for short-term fixes, which may buy immediate results but tends to lead to long-term disasters. Experimentation and pushing oneself to the limits will surely produce some bad results along the way. What we make of those bad results is what matters in the end. Great athletes, like all accomplished professionals, push their limits, fall and falter, and learn from their mistakes rather than dwell on them. “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker,” said Denis Waitley. “Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”
    Mastery athletes often count on teachers to help point out where they can improve. Jordan considered it an important key to his career (Goldman & Papson 1998):
The mental skills came with