Golf Flow

experience like Sunday?
    Justin Rose: Yeah, this is the way I see it: Closing out a golf tournament is difficult. You do learn things, and it depends how long it takes until you give yourself another situation whether you really—when you learn something, you’ve got to practice it for it to become natural, right? So if you’re not in contention that much, it’s very difficult to learn the lessons or to put into play the lessons that you learned.
    So this week I’m very happy to have the opportunity to go out there, test myself and put into play what I learned last week. On Sunday I really thought that I went out there thinking very well. Everything from that perspective was the same. My game plan didn’t change, my strategy didn’t change, and my commitment didn’t change. I just felt a little bit tighter, which is, I think, that’s the human body. Do you know what I mean?
    But obviously today where—there were just some obvious things that didn’t work out for me there at Travelers, which is easy when—nothing happened for me at Travelers. It was just a day where if I hit one or two good shots and got a little bit of rhythm going, I think the day would have been so different. But that was the thing that I struggled with—my rhythm. I think everything got a little quick. Like I said, that’s the natural thing to happen under pressure.
    Question: Did winning at Memorial make it easier to bounce back mentally from last week?
    Justin Rose: Yeah, definitely. I turned up here Monday morning feeling like I was a better player than I was Sunday because you learn. My game doesn’t go away overnight. You have an experience like that, and if you ask yourself the right questions and if you deal with it in the right way, you become better. That’s what learning is all about, and that’s what growing and improving is all about.
    Question: You sort of half answered this, but how quickly did it take you or how long did it take you to get over what happened at Hartford, and secondly, what did you learn—how do you prevent something like that from happening again if you’re in that position?
    Justin Rose: You can never prevent it from happening again. I think that’s the first thing to accept. You can’t be scared of it happening again. You’ve just got to put yourself in that position, dig in, do your best. You know what I mean? But with all the right tools, golf happens. I didn’t do a lot wrong at the Travelers to shoot five-over—I didn’t do a lot wrong. It’s just golf.
    First, if you accept that, it’s a lot easier to go out there and play, but there are things you can put in place. And experience: Tiger, Phil, these guys, they get into contention a lot, and therefore it becomes more normal, and those feelings that they face become easier to deal with. So it’ll be easier this weekend than it was last weekend, and obviously the more and more I put myself in contention, the easier it will be going forward.
    A number of key principles are embedded in this statement. Justin talks about learning, about leaving the past behind, about digging in and doing your best, and most important about recognizing that the nature of golf is such that you can have a poor result without doing a lot wrong. This is effective thinking perfected. Justin did not brood or overthink or panic. He simply accepted the inherent variability and randomness of the game and determined to keep pressing forward with freedom and enthusiasm. By staying out of his own way Justin let his good play continue. As fate would have it, he again played his way into contention and went into Sunday with the final-round lead, which he closed for his second win in three weeks.
    After the round of golf and the win, Justin observed,
This was an important day for me. Obviously, I was in here Friday talking about how I wanted to be getting better as a player and that is ultimately the truth, but I knew having not closed out last week, it was important for me just for myself to do it today. I felt like I really did put into play the lessons I learned at Hartford. I played much slower and I really felt calm. I didn’t feel like the nerves got the better of me at all the whole weekend, so I was much better at that. It was good fun. I felt very much in control of my emotions and it’s been a long week, but I’m very glad we’ve got to this point with a win.

Chapter 12
Stuart Appleby
    Developing Appreciation
    Keith Hamilton/Icon SMI
    The study of