Golf Flow

Anzaldi/Colorsport/Icon SMI
    I was walking across the driving range on Tuesday at the 2010 Players Championship in Ponte Vedra, Florida, when I heard a call from my friend and colleague, the noted swing instructor Sean Foley. With a stable of golfers that included 4 of the top 50 in the world (Sean O’Hair, Justin Rose, Hunter Mahan, Stephen Ames, and soon Tiger Woods), Sean was one of the most sought-after swing coaches on the PGA Tour. He is also one of the most well-read, knowledgeable, and dynamic coaches I’ve ever met. He has a tremendous understanding of both the golf swing and its role within the larger context of golf.
    “Gio,” he said, “I may have a project for you.” As it turned out, the project he was referring to was his client Justin Rose, with whom Sean had been working for about a year. By the time the 2010 Players Championship rolled around, Justin’s mechanics and technique were superb; he was swinging the club exactly as Sean wanted him to swing it.
    Sean: The warm-ups are incredible, Gio. Flawless! I’ve never seen better!
    Gio:And yet?
    Sean:And yet, we’re not getting results. I think it’s between his ears because his practice sessions are a thing of beauty.
    Gio: I’ve heard this story before—great mechanics, bad results. Keep me posted and let me know if you’d like me to step in and offer some assistance.
    Over the next few days, Rose’s pattern of good warm-ups followed by poor results repeated itself, albeit with a slight difference. Rather than just having good warm-ups, Justin had an awe-inspiring series of prodigiously good warm-ups. “As good as he’s ever hit it in his life,” coach Foley told me. Every shot that Justin was hitting on the driving range was flush: wedges, long irons, and driver.
    Like amateur golfers, professionals who have great warm-ups tend to have high expectations for good play. They meet these expectations much of the time, but not always. Golf is too fickle and complex to allow such direct correlations. I’ve been studying golf closely for the better part of 20 years, and I’ve observed bad warm-ups that lead to great rounds and great warm-ups that lead to bad rounds.
    Great warm-ups do lead to great rounds—and to rounds of every other type, which I guess is why Jack Nicklaus astutely observed, “Practice rounds and warm-ups are meaningless beyond what they may do for your confidence.” Acceptance of this fact is an effective way to keep expectations in check, which probably helped Nicklaus win 73 PGA Tour events and 18 majors.
    In Justin’s case, the result of his exceptional warm-up the week of the Players Championships was a disappointing 72, 72, which was poor enough for a missed cut. Thus, the frustrating pattern of underachievement for someone of Justin’s pedigree, talent, coaching, and technique continued.
    The week following his missed cut, Justin and I had the first of what would be many breakfasts together. I started by asking him some simple questions regarding his thoughts and beliefs about competition, golf, what it takes to play outstanding golf, and other fundamental questions that would help get me closer to how he understands the game. His reaction to one question in particular stood out.
    When I asked him why he played golf, he didn’t have a clear answer. He’d never thought to ask himself that question. Because he’d been playing from a young age, golf was simply what he did. In some respects, golf was just his habit. I probed further. “You’ve gotten out of bed every day for the past 10 years to practice the game of golf and in that time you’ve never considered asking yourself why you actually do it?” He found this observation as humorous as I did. “That,” I told him, “might be a good place to begin understanding those missed cuts.”

Change Your Mind, Change Your Game
    One of the interesting things about working on the psychological side of things is that you are able to see qualitative changes in people before you ever see changes in performance. The person changes, and then the game follows. Altering the thought patterns and belief systems of people is a unique and rewarding undertaking, and one that should never be taken lightly or attempted with anything less than 100 percent buy-in by the golfer.
    The process unfolds rather predictably:
It begins with teaching simple ideas and psychological constructs.
The person then internalizes the ideas and holds them up to his or her own