Golf Flow

so effective. It allows you to learn new lessons, to remember previous lessons, and to continually reinterpret lessons to improve your future effectiveness.
    Over the past 15 years as I’ve watched golfers’ careers ebb and flow, I’ve noticed that many of their turning points come in the form of a simple lesson or eternal truth about the game that they may have learned when they were junior golfers: “Keep your head still when you putt.” “Soft hands.” “Don’t slide off the ball on your backswing.” And that, in many ways, reveals something fundamental about the nature of golf. Success isn’t only about doing the simple things well; it’s also about doing the simple things well
consistently over time
.
    As in 2006, in 2010 Camilo’s high expectations had gotten the better of him. To help recalibrate his thinking, I did a drill with him that ended up serving as a powerful lesson. I pulled out a sleeve of silver coins along with a Canadian eagle gold coin. We played a game with the following rules:
    From 7 feet, Camilo would get a silver coin for every putt he made. I laid the silver coins on one side of the hole so that he could see them as he was putting. Every time he made a putt, I would move a coin to the other side of the hole so he could see his stack of “winnings” grow. If he made 5 in a row from 7 feet, he would get the valuable gold coin.
    “What happens if I miss?” he asked before we began. “Nothing,” I said. “You get coins only if you
make
them.” He chuckled, set his eyes onto the hole, shifted them back to the ball, and smoothly rolled in his first putt. His stroke was free, fluid, and smooth. His release was pure, and the ball rolled beautifully. It wasn’t long until he had my entire stack of silver coins, as well as my coveted gold coin. He made almost all of his putts, going 16 for 20 from 7 feet.
    I then moved him to phase 2 of the game. After he had accumulated a stack of precious metal (worth the value of a small car), I changed the rules: Camilo would still putt from 7 feet, but he would lose a coin for every putt he missed. I had no more coins to give, so he had nothing to gain, only to lose. If he missed two in a row, then he had to give back the gold coin. As in the first trial, he had to attempt 20 putts.
    After a few makes, his stroke quickened a little bit, and his release shortened and looked a little more indecisive and just a bit more desperate. He was trying harder. Pressing. As such, the ball came off a little less pure, and it wasn’t long until I had many of my silver coins back. After a while, with nothing to gain and valuable coins to lose, he stopped enjoying the game. It was no longer fun.
    It didn’t take long for Camilo, who graduated from the University of Florida as an academic All-American with a 3.9 GPA, to pick up the lesson I was trying to give him. Having made it into the top 10 of the world golf rankings, Camilo fell into the same trap he had fallen into his rookie year, the same trap lots of good golfers fall into: He began trying to play perfectly and to be unforgiving of mistakes. He felt every bad shot, every missed putt, every less-than-perfect chip deeper and more acutely and more negatively than he had when he was a rookie playing with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Why? Because having climbed that high on the world rankings list, every miss felt like he was losing control of his grip on the world rankings, and so he tried extra hard on each one, only to find that the harder he tried and the less control he was willing to give up, the less accepting he could be. Soon he was no longer free and flowing in the rhythm of his game.
    The ultimate lesson for Camilo was the same as for most golfers: He putts best when he isn’t thinking about outcomes, results, or the consequences of a made or a missed putt. It came down to excitement and passion on the front end of a putt and full acceptance on the back end of a putt—which means not trying to control too much! I wasn’t advocating reckless golf to my friend as much as I was advocating fearless golf to him. I wanted him to be free again—free to enjoy putting without being a prisoner to outcomes.

Leading With Attitude
    With his new attitude firmly entrenched, Camilo left the next day, and what followed was one of the most explosive months of golf I’d seen from any golfer in a long time. He went to the Accenture Match Play Championships, which pits the top 64 golfers in