Golf Flow

begin to feel the pressures that are associated with being out of sync with time. Their minds begin racing, and they are unable to find clarity.
    Speaking directly to this point during a 2007 clinic at Mesa Verde Country Club, Tiger Woods talked about facing players who are in situations that they’ve never been in before:
They are slightly out of rhythm, they give one more look, or freeze over a ball a split second longer, well that’s different and if they do that . . . they’re uncomfortable. That’s fine. I can make them more uncomfortable by playing better.
    Certainly that was the case for Nick Watney, who went into Sunday of the 2010 PGA Championship with a 3-shot lead. By the time the day ended, Watney had to birdie holes 16 and 17 to salvage a final round score of 81! Of the major meltdown he recalled, “I was going very, very fast, swinging fast, walking fast, and thinking way ahead.” Similarly, Dustin Johnson went into Sunday of the 2010 U.S. Open with a 3-shot lead. His scorecards for the week read 71, 70, 66, 82. What was behind that final round 82? According to Dustin, “Everything started to speed up and I couldn’t slow anything down.” Think about it: On a golf course where the scoring average for the fields on Sunday was a full shot lower than it was on Saturday, Dustin posted a score that was 16 shots higher! These accounts are not a knock on either of these two golfers, they illustrate how, independent of great talent and perfect golf swing, the subjective speeding up of time can undo even the best.
    This insight is worth consideration by people who care about playing their best golf. Two of the best golfers in the world, Nick Watney and Dustin Johnson, went into final rounds with the same golf swings that had put them into contention. Because their minds were not equipped to handle the speeding up of time, their golf swings (as well as other parts of their game) fell apart.

The Power of the Mind
    This point leads us to a fundamental discussion in the golfing world, namely, how important is the golf swing in overall golfing performance? Based on the observations of Watney and Johnson, as well as those golfers who were able to improve their golf game by changing their minds, it seems obvious that golfers who focus exclusively on the mechanics of their golf swings while ignoring the subjective power of the mind put themselves at a disadvantage. They remind me of the story my grandfather used to tell me about an old man who loses his keys while walking in a poorly lit area. Rather than search for the keys in the shadows where he dropped them, he instead searches for them under the lights. When asked why he would knowingly search for keys where he knows that he didn’t drop them, the old man responds, “Because the light is better over here.” Similarly, golfers often look for solutions to their game where the light is better, but not always where the solution actually resides. They search for the solution where they
want
it to be because they are comfortable in the physical realm. They neglect to search their attitude and mind-set, which is often where the solution lies.
    The subjective speeding up of time, as you see from the previous examples, prevents golfers from being able to execute the skills that they clearly possess. In this sense, golf is not exclusively about talent or swing mechanics; it is truly a mental game.
    Comparably, the subjective slowing down of time associated with flow often allows golfers to see and do things that are typically beyond their ability. Golfers often comment that they can make necessary adjustments in their golf swings as the swing itself is taking place (a fact that Jack Nicklaus confirmed with me as I was doing research for this book). Their tempo is perfect, and they can feel every moment of the transition from the backswing to the downswing to impact—a flicker of a moment in the golf swing that happens so quickly that it is typically lost.
    The transformation of time experienced while immersed in flow states is not limited to golfers out on the course. Any student who has ever spent time in a classroom listening to a passionate, engaging teacher or, conversely, has been trapped in a lecture hall listening to a lethargic speaker with a monotone knows that we all experience time on a relative and subjective scale. Experiences that we enjoy seem to end quickly. Summer vacations fly by, and dinner with interesting company invariably ends all too