Golf Flow

on to make several birdies and keep the momentum of his good golf going.
    The psychology behind Matt’s internal dialogue can be traced back to the psychologist William Purkey, who posited the idea that each of us has a
whispering self
—an inner voice that guides us and helps direct our behavior (Beach 2001). The problem, according to Purkey, is that most people give more weight to negative whispers than to positive ones. Purkey’s approach to success revolves around getting people to replace the negative, self-destructive dialogue with positive, reasonable, encouraging dialogue. The core of Purkey’s philosophy is what he calls invitational education—a practice of communicating messages that summon forth human potential while identifying and changing forces that defeat potential.
    All golfers have a whispering self that accompanies them as they strive to perfect their game. If you take the advice from chapter 16 seriously and begin to study success, then you will see that on his march through the majors, Jack Nicklaus was engaged in a constant internal dialogue. And that dialogue had countless moments in which he tried to become negative with himself. Sometimes the negative self won, but not often. By his own admission, Jack always favored the positive over the negative.
    As someone who studies the game closely, I can tell you that the response to mishaps in the game is often the difference between winning and losing tournaments. The 2012 Masters provided perhaps the best example of how to respond positively to a tough situation. Bubba Watson had never won a major, he had surrendered a Sunday lead earlier in the year, and he had missed a makeable birdie putt on the 18th hole that put him into a playoff with major champion Louis Oosthuizen. On their first hole, Watson drove the ball deep into the right trees. A tower and trees were located between him and the green. The only way he could have possibly put the ball on the green would have been to play a 30-yard (27 m) hook that, to most golfers (even professionals), would be so improbable that they wouldn’t even attempt it. Bubba’s self-talk, and the talk of his caddie, illustrates the point of this chapter with clarity:
The first time I ever worked with my caddie, Boston, six years ago, I told him, I said, “If I have a swing, I’ve got a shot.” So I’m used to the woods. I’m used to the rough. And we were walking down here and I said, “We were here already. We hit it close here already today,” because I was in those trees. I got there. I saw it was a perfect draw, a perfect hook. We were walking down the fairway going, “We’ve been here before. You’re good out of the trees.” And he said, “If you’ve got a swing, you’ve got a shot.” I get down there, saw it was a perfect draw. Even though the tower was in my way, I didn’t want to ask if I get relief or anything, because it just set up for a perfect draw—well, hook. That’s what we did. We just kept talking about, you never know what’s going to happen out here. Anything can happen. You know, so that’s what we did walking down the fairway.
    In this case, Bubba perfectly framed a situation. He had the choice to criticize himself after both the missed birdie on the 18th hole and the poor drive. But he didn’t. Instead, he responded to the negatives (missed putt, bad drive) with the perfect attitude: “If you’ve got a swing, you’ve got a shot.” The resulting shot enabled his first major championship. His response to adversity offers a great lesson to everyone interested in cultivating a winning attitude in golf.
    Golfers have repeatedly recalled for me times when positive self-talk served as the turning point in a round, a season, or a career. They’ve also recalled times when negative self-talk skewed their perceptions and led to periods of poor play.

Improving Your Skills
    Self-talk is a powerful tool to effect change within yourself. So here is your assignment: Reflect back on some of the harsher or more critical things that you’ve said to yourself or called yourself because of golf. Make a list of them. When I’ve done this exercise in the past with golfers, I’ve heard some pretty cruel comments. Golfers have told themselves how much they stink, how worthless they are, how they’ll never be any good, and how they should quit and give up the game. I’ve had golfers talk about how they are unworthy of being loved and valued because they believe themselves to