Golf Flow

exact and accurate feedback, saying, “You are doing many things well.” The experience is exactly what you need at the time.
    Morgan Freeman’s lines from the 2007 film
Evan Almighty
serve as a perfect analogy:
Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?
    This is precisely the way that the game of golf communicates with golfers. When they need to build patience, golf often gives them the double bogey that will enable that very trait to develop. Interestingly enough, when golfers learn patience, they have fewer double bogeys.

Rebuilding From Within and Without
    In the case of Stuart Appleby, the game was giving him a lot of frustration and poor results. As unpleasant as it was for a brief spell, the experience was exactly what Stuart needed. To rebuild his golf swing, Stuart began to explore his motivation and purpose and to revisit his determination to the game. It was during this period of poor scoring when Stuart underwent his greatest growth as a golfer. As I do with many of my golfers, I simply asked Stuart to avoid the obvious, impulsive reactions such as disappointment and instead to look for the larger lessons that the game might be inviting him to learn.
    During this difficult time, he had to explore why he was scoring so badly. One of the conclusions he came to was that he had no control over his tension levels. The type of stress that comes with bad golf increases tension in the body. This tension was preventing him from effectively executing the golf swing that he and Steve Bann had relentlessly crafted into one of the finest on the PGA Tour. Tense, stressful, angry golf has physiological and chemical effects that all but make it impossible to play golf in flow. Psychologically, the negativity deteriorates the seamless transition of our thoughts. Physically, the stress hormones prevent the smooth, rhythmic movements that characterize golfers in flow. Before Stuart could transform his golf game, he had to transcend his base emotions.
    So a couple of weeks before the Greenbrier, Stuart began to dial down his tension levels. Rather than think about his swing, he simply focused on his rhythm and tension levels. Suddenly, he began finding it easier to get into the proper positions in his backswing. His performance began to improve. He tied for 29th at the U.S. Open, tied for 27th at the Travelers Championship, tied for 18th in Reno, and then it all came together for a record-breaking Sunday 59 to win the Greenbrier.
    What, specifically, allowed the 59? The exact lesson that he learned while he was slumping: “Monitor your tension levels. Soften your grip pressure.” Coming down the stretch on Sunday, his hands and forearms remained soft, which allowed his swing to behave correctly. He posted the lowest score in the history of the PGA Tour.
    This turn of events illustrates what psychologists call reciprocal causation. In golf, flow states generate a quiet mind, simple thoughts, low tension, and smooth rhythm. But when a golfer has been slumping for a while, thinking that a simple attitude change can necessarily lead to flow is unreasonable. So we focus on the symptoms, and what happens is that embracing simple thoughts, low tension, and smooth rhythm helps lead to flow states.
    Additionally, Stuart had to examine the factors that led to the poor play and the tension in the first place. In reviewing the fallout from his long string of successes, Stuart realized that he sometimes felt as if he had to go play. Indeed, this type of attitude develops when we take golf (or anything else in life) for granted.
    The slump Stuart went through served to shift his perspective from
having
to play somewhere to
getting
to play somewhere. His slump gave him so much gratitude that he played every chance he got! When getting into tournaments was no longer a guarantee, he began to love golf again and to feel appreciative for the opportunity. After 7 weeks in a row, he appreciated the chance to play 8 weeks. After 8 weeks in a row, he appreciated the chance to play 9. After 9 he appreciated the chance to play 10 (most golfers fret after playing 3 in a row!). After 10