Golf Flow

that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The golf equivalent is that sometimes a missed cut is just a missed cut.
    As I’ve mentioned in previous chapters, research shows that confidence (self-efficacy) shapes the way that people interpret their experiences.
    The mind of a confident golfer interprets a missed cut as something benign: “No biggie. Water off a duck’s back. Everyone misses cuts. I’ll be fine. Just have to work out a few things on the range.”
    The mind of a golfer who has lost his confidence interprets a missed cut in an entirely different manner. Missing a putt like that at the British Open has the power to make a golfer’s mind go down into a spiral:
Double bogey. Missed cut. What if I lose my card? What if I lose my livelihood? How will I make a living? Panic. PANIC! PANIC!!!
    As anticipated, that double bogey felt like it meant a great deal to Sean. That viewpoint is clearly understandable, especially in the high pressure of the PGA Tour.
    As I always do with my golfers, I tried to steer him out of emotional reactions and into mastery golf.
    Gio: I know this is hard for you to hear right now, but the game is trying to teach you something. What is the lesson? You need to measure progress by things other than short-term results. I know this is bad-tasting medicine, but I also know that double bogey, just like the double bogey yesterday, are exactly the two things that were meant to happen this week. Find the lesson in those two holes, and you’ll have made great progress. This is round 2 of 20.
    It took more than 24 hours, but then I received my next message from Sean:
    Sean: The lesson from yesterday is to be in the present moment. I’ve been thinking about the 18th hole since it happened. I’m not in the present. I am in the past. I’ve got to accept and get into the present.

Dispatching the Demons
    Sean’s next tournament, the following week, was the Canadian Open. He had a long flight from England to Vancouver and a lot of time to think and face the internal demons that all golfers have to deal with. He was 143rd on the money list, coming off a missed cut, but he could feel that something inside him was changing. Internal change was preceding external change.
    Shaughnessy Country Club in Vancouver, British Columbia, was set up like a major championship. The players marveled not only at the beauty of the golf course but also at the shapes of the holes and the difficulty of the setup. On Thursday Sean played a solid round of golf. It was a day, as golfers say, when he played great but got nothing out of it. “3 of 20.” I reminded him. I told him that his score was irrelevant to me so long as he stayed aware of what was happening inside him: “For now you have one mission: Make every shot about the shot itself, not about the score, rankings, your career, your past, your future, your family.” We set the goal to make every round a little freer and a little less cluttered than the round before. By doing that, Sean had a great Friday (4 of 20) and Saturday (5 of 20). He’d made it into the final group on Sunday.
    Playing with a lead undoes many golfers. It is the lights and music that make them quick, tight, and out of sync. In Sean’s case, it would have been easy for him to revisit the moment the week before when he panicked. He could have been thinking, “One good round and I save my card. One good round and I take care of my family. One good round and all this pressure and these troubles disappear.” Fortunately, he wasn’t thinking any of those things. On Sunday morning he called before heading to the golf course. The tone of his voice was calmer and more peaceful. He said to me, “I am ready for the challenge today,” and then recited a few keys:
This is round 6 of 20. My job is to be free.
Dumb it down.
Have soft hands on the putter.
    I reminded him of one final key: “Make today about rhythm. The game will try to bully you into being quick. No matter what happens with your score, stay in rhythm. This is round 6 of 20.” He thanked me and then before hanging up he added, “Whatever happens today, I am OK with it.”
    Acceptance.
    Sure enough, five hours later after a calm, composed round of 2-under-par 68, Sean was again a PGA Tour winner. In his victory speech he mentioned the word
humbling
several times.
    When I called to congratulate him on his win, there was a long pause at the other end of the line. Then I finally heard a statement that showed me he was still in