Golf Flow

financial traders, and that being fearless means totally different things to wakeboarders and scientists.
    Based on this multifarious experience, I can say with all honesty that golf at the highest level is the most challenging endeavor I’ve ever come across, and it therefore requires the most advanced, nuanced, and fundamentally sound psychological understanding. Not to diminish the difficulty and complexity of other sports and endeavors, but nothing requires such exacting mental fortitude as playing the game of golf consistently well. The reason has to do with the unique differentials between the quality of a golfer’s play and his ultimate score.
    As I was reviewing the leader board from the 2012 HSBC World Golf Championship tournament in China, I was reminded of the unique challenges that accompany golf. Here are some of the massive score differentials that individual players experienced that week:
Brandt Snedeker: 60-72, 12-shot differential
Jason Dufner: 71-64, 7-shot differential
Ernie Els: 63-70, 7-shot differential
Louis Oosthuizen: 63-72, 9-shot differential
Lee Westwood: 61-72, 11-shot differential
Nick Watney: 62-72, 10-shot differential
    If you talk to players on the Tour, as I have done for the past 15 years, and ask them what the difference was between their high and low rounds, they are likely to say, “Not much.” They probably prepared the same way, had equally good warm-ups, and hit a number of high-quality shots. They likely didn’t feel especially different from round to round, and they didn’t try harder or less hard.
    So you may wonder,
What sense do you make of a game that can deliver such radical differences in outcomes when the processes feel exactly the same?
It is in this respect that golf can be maddening: Golfers are judged on outcomes rather than processes in a game where the same processes can produce radically different outcomes!
    In most areas of life there is a pretty direct correspondence between process and outcomes. If I put 10 gallons of gas in my car, I can drive 300 miles. With the exception of a couple of miles either way, it is fairly predictable. The same is the case with caloric intake and weight, study hours and learning, weekly hours running and resting heart rate, and other activities where processes and outcomes correspond.
    Among all activities, golf stands alone in five respects:
The game’s sensitivity to internal psychological changes
The way small changes in something like a golf ball or driver can correspond to massive differences in scoring
The amount of variability a golfer can experience in a single round
The amount of variability a golfer can experience over a career
The discrepancy between processes and outcomes
    It is from this perspective that golf is a game of beauty and difficulty that I interpret the most recent segment of Camilo’s professional journey. Just as with Kelly Slater’s low periods, a common reaction to Camilo’s difficult 2011-2012 phase is to ask, “What’s wrong with Camilo?” This type of reaction happens at all levels of competitive golf. Even when junior players are having challenging scoring years, I frequently see parents or junior coaches make the assumption that something is wrong. Often, there
is
something wrong. But just as frequently, small details contribute to vast discrepancies in scoring. Consider these statistics from Camilo’s performance in 2012, a year in which he finished 144th on the PGA Tour Money List:
Greens in regulation: 4th
Scoring average before cut: 24th
Overall scoring average: 73rd
Ball striking: 23rd
Bounceback: 7th
    Both his driving distance and accuracy were in the top two-thirds for players on the Tour. In addition, Camilo made 7 of his last 8 cuts, and in his last four tournaments he ranked 2nd, 15th, 10th, and 1st for greens in regulation. In those tournaments, he finished 30th, 29th, 20th, and 28th.
    Based on these numbers, it seems reasonable to think that Camilo should have had a very strong, or at least a very solid, year. Being that golf is a game where accurate thinking is at a premium, what sense does one make of these numbers?
    Before answering that question, let me clarify my point. I am not saying that Camilo had bad luck, that golf isn’t fair, or that he played great all season. None of those would be particularly accurate statements. What I am saying, and trying to emphasize, is just how difficult it can be to get a realistic picture of a golfer and how difficult it can be