Golf Flow

cognitive and physiological benefits. In the heat of battle, even the most comforting thoughts are of little help when they are paired with a heart rate in excess of 100 beats per minute and a breathing count that is triple the normal rate.

Adopt the body language and physical habits that accompany flow. Note Rickie Fowler’s relaxed, confident demeanor as he plays off the fairway.

    © PA Sports
    Being a fearless mastery golfer and developing the ability to generate flow with regularity require the joining of great thinking with a measure of control over the physiological processes that change under pressure.

Figure 23.1 The inverted-U model of arousal and performance.

Figure 23.2 The zone of optimal functioning model. The white bars represent anxiety levels furing unsuccessful performances, the black bars represent anxiety during successful ones, and the horizontal lines mark the ZOF.

    Reprinted from Y.L. Hanin, 1986, State-trait anxiety research on sports in the USSR. In Cross-cultural anxiety, vol. 3, edited by C.D. Spielberger and R. Diaz-Guerrero (Washington, DC: Hemisphere Publishing Corp.), 54, with permission of Taylor & Francis Group. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
    The processes for learning to tweak your body range from the obvious and common to the more extreme. Athletes, golfers included, try many methods to trigger their most effective mind-set. Many golfers whom I’ve worked with use music to help them find the right mind-set. Some golfers listen to spiritual music, some to rap music, some to pop music with rhythm. Considering that music can affect how we feel and that it is based on rhythm, a good playlist can help move the internal needle higher or lower.
    Another aid to triggering an effective game face is to use motion to create emotion. If you’re a football fan, you’ve no doubt seen teams collectively jump in huddles. Consistent with this principle, some innovative practitioners are pioneering a movement called meridian stretching, in which they help people stretch into various positions that relate to corresponding emotions. The movement is gaining both momentum and credibility. To give you an idea of what I mean, look to the sky and raise your arms in the air. Doesn’t your mood improve immediately? We can often detect sadness or melancholy in people through their body language. These innovative practitioners of meridian stretching are doing the reverse: Rather than having body position reflect emotion, they are manipulating body position to influence emotion.
    Anyone who has followed Luke Donald’s rise to the top of the golf world will notice how frequently he refers to the importance of his body language. At the 2012 BMW Championship that he eventually won, he was asked about the work that he has done on his body language and (non-golf-swing) posture.
Well, personally, I just feel like it’s helped me. It’s helped me to really be aware of my posture and how I outwardly project that feeling of positiveness. It helps me, and you know, obviously sends a message to whoever I’m playing with.
    These lessons relate to the types of qualitative changes that we discussed in our previous chapters, and they speak to your becoming more in tune with your body and internal states. Although a variety of methods and techniques are available to help people monitor and control the reactions of the body, I use one that is both simple and effective, called Jacobson’s progressive muscle relaxation (Jacobson 1938). Here are the basic instructions:
    Sit in a comfortable chair. Reclining armchairs are ideal, but a bed is OK too. Get as comfortable as possible—no tight clothes or shoes and don’t cross your legs. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Do it again. What you’ll be doing is alternately tensing and relaxing specific groups of muscles. After tension, a muscle will be more relaxed than it was before the tensing. Concentrate on the feel of the muscles, specifically the contrast between tension and relaxation. In time, you will recognize tension in any specific muscle and be able to reduce that tension.
    Don’t tense muscles other than the specific group at each step. Don’t hold your breath, grit your teeth, or squint. Breathe slowly and evenly and think only about the tension–relaxation contrast. Each tensing is for 10 seconds; each relaxing is for 10 or 15 seconds. Count “One one-thousand, two one-thousand,” and so on until you have a feel