Zen means “action with awareness,” being completely in the present moment. The qualities that accompany the Zen experience include expansive vision, effortless focus, a feeling of equanimity and timelessness, abundant confidence, and complete freedom from anxiety or doubt. Interestingly, this is exactly the way champion athletes describe “being in the Zone.” It is also strikingly similar to the way golfers describe the feeling of a perfectly struck golf shot, a feeling every golfer wants to have again and again.
All seasoned players know, or at least have felt, that when you are playing your best, you are much the same as in a state of meditation. You’re free of tension and chatter. You are concentrating on one thing. It is the ideal condition for good golf.
Confidence is an unconditional state in which you simply possess an unwavering state of mind that needs no reference point. There is no room for doubt; even the question of doubt does not occur.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few. Beginner’s mind is a mind that is open, eager to learn, an empty cup. If your mind is open, empty to preconceptions, it is always inquisitive, receptive to whatever arises, and ready to engage.
When the clear water of instruction is poured in, the dirt makes it cloudy. This symbolizes the way we can distort what we hear, interpreting and editing it to fit our preconceived ideas or opinions. Nothing new is actually learned. When we take a lesson, if the instruction matches how we already see things, it is taken as confirmation. Anything new that doesn’t match our opinion is resisted, ignored, or disregarded.
Less than 1% of all golfers have completed a round of golf in par or better. That makes it a rather unrealistic target score for all but the most skilled of among us.
Don’t complain
About anything
Not even to yourself.
Ultimately, our mind has the potential to be as big as the universe. The more open our mind, the bigger it is. The more consumed by worry and petty concerns, the smaller it is.
While playing well in a tournament, we might think to ourselves, “Well, you’ve gotten away with it so far, but you’ll screw up before too long.” Believing in this thought gives it power. It creates feelings of doubt and anxiety, which interfere with our swing and produce errant shots. That makes us believe the thought even more, amplifying it in our mind.
Thoughts, sense perceptions, emotional feelings, and dreams all appear in your mirrorlike mind. None of these are mind; they all arise as contents of the mind. You have thoughts, but you are not your thoughts.
When you identify with awareness instead of its content, small mind becomes big mind. You can see each thought as a little cloud floating across the big sky of your mind.
False confidence doesn’t help at all. It’s just talking big, kidding ourselves. It can lead to taking unrealistic chances, usually with disastrous consequences.
Ask yourself how many shots you would have saved if you always developed a strategy before you hit, always played within your capabilities, never lost your temper, and never got down on yourself.
Composure is being calm and focused, poised and at ease.
Bobby Jones considered this his most serious weakness. He found that when he was comfortably ahead in a tournament, he began to fear the embarrassment of not holding his lead. He would try to control his swing to avoid making a mistake. Instead of picking a target, he focused on avoiding hazards.
Ben Crenshaw, one of the all-time great putters, said that when he was really putting well, he could smell the dirt in the bottom of the hole.
When you are focusing on one sense, the others fade into the background. Most people find that when focusing on sense perception, there is very little mental chatter happening.
Filling your awareness with sense perceptions prevents the arising of distracting thoughts about past or future results.
Having set up with an alignment that is different from where you feel you should send the ball, your swing will become a combination of compensations, trying to go in 2 directions at once.
It is extremely important to have an image of where we do want the ball to go. Thinking about where we don’t want it to go, the hazard that we want to avoid, sets that negative image in our mind. That image is the message our body responds to and does its best to produce.
2 aspects of mind are involved: One is the conscious, thinking mind that plans; the other is the subconscious, intuitive mind that coordinates body movements. The “planning mind” sends a message to the “coordinating mind,” giving it an image of what the body is supposed to accomplish. But when we haven’t made a decisive choice, the “coordinating mind” receives 2 images. So what does it do? It does its best to combine them, and it’s usually a losing combination.
This same confusion happens anytime we haven’t really made up our mind, when there’s lingering doubts as we’re about to swing. Preparing for each shot as well as we can and then making a commitment to one plan is the only way that there’s a chance for success.
Commitment involves believing without a doubt that the plan you’ve made — the image you have, the club you’ve picked — is the best one. If you have any doubt whatsoever, you’re not really committed.
To be able to commit to a plan, you need to feel that you can handle whatever the outcome is — you need to be willing to pre-accept whatever the results might be. Prepare for your shot as best you can. Have as vivid an image as you can and settle yourself as much as you can.
If you have skills in playing recovery shots, you’ll feel more confident about handling a wider variety of results. Therefore, one way to reduce fear is to strengthen your short game and other shots that help you scramble effectively.
Every golfer has had the experience of setting up to a shot and not feeling completely comfortable with some aspect of it. We might have a vague feeling that something is not quite right, or we might know what’s wrong but not bother to do anything about it. In either case, when we “go ahead and hit it anyway,” the result is usually terrible. I call that kind of shot an “anyway.” Anytime we can reflect on a shot and say, “You know, I knew better,” that was an anyway.
If you don’t make a clear choice, you’re set up for an anyway. Anytime you feel uncommitted to any part of your planned shot and go ahead with your stroke, that’s an anyway.
In the golf cart example, it’s probably some combination of being too lazy to go back to the cart, not wanting to make others wait, and not wanting to look foolish for having to go get a different club. On the tee, we might feel embarrassed to retee the ball, or, imagining others’ impatience, not want to take the time to step back and start our routine over again. The anxiety of a tee shot or trouble shot can make us want to get it over with.
Under the water it’s surprisingly peaceful in contrast to the turbulence above. You avoid the impact of the breaking wave and come up easily on the other side of it.
With thoughts, the same principles applies. We want to be free from nagging thoughts because they distract us from the task at hand: making a smooth, free stroke with only the target in mind.
See the thoughts as moving through the spacious awareness of your mind. It takes practice to treat your thoughts somewhat objectively, to not get caught up in their story lines. As best you can, let them come and go as if they were moving by like waves above you.
A vital part of our presentation for a golf shot has to do with alleviating tension from our body. Excessive muscle tension is an obstacle to making a fluid, powerful golf swing. There needs to be just enough tension to maintain our posture and hold onto the club as we swing, but any more than necessary interferes with the flow of the swing.
You don’t play golf to relax, you relax to play golf.
You may find you are distracted and hurrying because the foursome behind you is waiting. Notice if you are taking responsibility even if the group in front of you is slow, or someone else in your foursome is the slow player. Recognize the anxiety you cause yourself even when the situation is not in your control. Rushing through your routine, thinking about the group behind you instead of the shot is a recipe for disaster.
Here’s a thought that will help you to slow yourself down in that type of situation: Taking an extra few seconds over a putt takes less time than a second for third putt. And taking an extra few seconds to properly prepare for a tee shot takes a lot less time than looking for your ball in the woods.
Now check on your breathing — is it deep and relaxed? Chances are it isn’t. Most people respond that they were barely breathing at all. If there was any breathing, it was constricted and very shallow.
This is a natural reaction. Animal freeze at sounds of danger and stop breathing to better hear what is approaching.
The mind not only directs the body, it gets feedback from it as well. So if we confront real or imagined danger, the mind sends a message to the body to tense up. As long as the tension lingers, when the mind checks on the body, it recognizes the tension and figure that “we’re still in danger.”
In golf, if we keep thinking about a mistake we made on a previous hole, or project how our score will turn out at the end of the round, it’s as if we’re daydreaming.
The point of mindfulness and awareness practice is just noticing whatever arises in our experience, without comment, judgment, or evaluation. It is sometimes referred to as “bare attention.” It is simply being, without having to do anything about how we’re being. Instead of running away from or trying to get rid of anything, stay with the thoughts and emotions and look into them. Just staying in the here and now in this way is an expression of bravery.
One of the challenges faced by all levels of golfers is expressed in this lament: “Why can’t I hit it on the course the way I was hitting it on the range? It feels so frustrating!”
Often we don’t use our complete swing routine on the practice tee. We just set up and hit, then rake another ball over and hit, rake and hit, usually without a specific target.
Thinking mind operates by using concepts and words. It analyzes and calculates. It sorts through the information that comes in from the senses and internal feelings, comparing it to information remembered from past experiences. Thinking mind does an excellent job of synthesizing all this information into a plan for action. In golf the thinking mind analyzes information about distance, lie, wind, humidity, and past experiences. It calculates risk versus reward. It makes decisions and plans.
Self-consciousness is thinking about our experience. To think about something implies a quality of separation, in the same way that looking at something requires some separation between observer and object.
There’s a story that a worm asked a centipede how it moved all those legs in the right order. As soon as the centipede thought about it, it got all tangled up and couldn’t move. In golf that’s called paralysis from analysis.
On the psychological level, fear produces the tendency to over-control. The thinking mind takes over, and our movements are marked by self-consciousness. We are overly cautious and hesitant.
On the physical level, fear produces certain bodily reactions. This is described in stress studies as the fight-or-flight syndrome. Our systems are geared to freeze and stop breathing when we have fear. The blood flows to our big muscles (as if getting ready to run from a saber-toothed tiger), so we lose sensitivity in our hands and make poor decisions with our brain. Adrenaline flows freely, so we get speedy and jumpy. The muscles get tense, interfering with any chance of making a full turn, a full extension at impact, or a full release.
This is usually mistaken thinking — rarely do others think of us as critically as we think they do.
Each time you took a forkful of food, I doubt you were saying to yourself, “Keep your elbow close to your side. Keep your wrist cocked. Keep your head still.”
Some psychologists use the “Stop!” technique. If you were caught up in a thought and someone were to sneak up behind you and yell “Stop!” in your ear, it would certainly stop your train of thought. Proponent of this technique suggest that mentally yelling “Stop!” to yourself can cut the thoughts of fear or doubt.
If you rolled the ball on the line you chose, at the pace you wanted, with what you felt was a good stroke, then you made the putt. You may not hole every putt, but you can make every putt.
How much a putt breaks depends completely on how fast it’s rolling. The faster the ball is traveling, the less effect gravity will have on it, and therefore the less it will break.
The best way to read a putt is start at the hole. Examine the area around the hole. Then work backward from there to your ball, imagining the path and pace your ball will need to travel to enter the hole at the spot you picked.
Thinking to yourself about how hard to swing the club while putting is a surefire recipe for disaster.
When you putt with imagination, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how many putts pour into the hole exactly the way you imagined.
One of the most common approach to long putts is to lag, meaning to try to roll the ball near the hole without really trying to get it in.
The most common technique is to imagine a circle, 6ft in diameter around the hole. If you’re inside this, you have no more than 3ft remaining for your 2nd putt. The purpose of this approach is to take the pressure off the long putts.
Keep your head looking down after the putt is struck. Guess whether the ball will be “short,” “long,” or “just right” at the edge of the fringe before you look up.
Don’t count your money while you’re sitting at the table.
You may take a seemingly easy hole for granted and start worrying about a difficult one coming up later. Then you get angry at yourself for messing up the so-called easy hole.
The reverse assumption, that you’ve “got it in the bag,” can be even more dangerous. In football or basketball, leading teams get in trouble when they start to play a “prevent defense” too early in the game. If the other team catches up, the first team has a hard time rousing the energy to go on the offensive again. In the same way, if you think you’ve got the match or the tournament won, that image of the future gives a message to your body that you’re finished. All your systems start to shift into low gear.
When there is little emotional intensity, the level of performance is very low. This reflects not caring at all, so no effort or energy goes into performance. That is the quality of “too loose.”
All too often we try to get something extra out of our drives, and the results are usually the opposite of what we desire.
The golf swing is a series of muscle movements, all in sequence. Any interference with that sequence, such as extra muscle tension, interrupts the flow of the swing. The average golfer’s idea of “trying to hit it farther” actually causes an excess tightening of muscles, which shortens the arc of the swing and reduces the whipping action of the arms, resulting in a loss of distance.
Most average players try to hit every shot as far as they possibly can. Ego is the culprit here: We think that how far we can hit a particular club is the measure of how good we are. But that’s not the point of the game of golf. Accuracy and consistency are much more important for lower golf scores.
Tour players swing at only 80% of their maximum power on most shots. It’s called playing within yourself, and the purpose is to make a consistent, smooth swing that produces consistent distances for each club.
Average golfers almost always leave their approach shots far short of the hole. Again, ego is at fault: We choose the club that would reach the hole only if we hit it absolutely perfectly. This creates a subconscious tendency to try to “kill the ball,” which causes all kinds of problems. Instead, when faced with an approach to a green, choose the club that will take you near the back of the green with a perfect shot. More often than not, you’ll end up about in the middle, not too far from the hole.
Most golfers get excellent results from a layup shot. All we’re trying to do is put the ball in position for the next shot. We’re not trying to hit it as far as we can or trying to get it close to the hole. Usually it’s not aimed near a hazard (in fact, we’re often playing it to avoid a hazard). For these reasons it’s a low-pressure shot, so quite often we make a very smooth, relaxed, rhythmic swing. And quite often our best shots are produced.
- Staying in the present and not being distracted by thoughts of outcome, neither of his own nor his opponents’.
- Establishing composure and focus. This meant feeling settled and having a clear image in mind of the shot he wanted to produce before addressing the ball.
- Trusting his swing and shot-making ability, and staying free from the self-sabotaging tendency of expecting to mess up after things are going well for a while.
- Not being so hard on himself when he makes a mistake, and managing strong feelings like anger, excitement, and frustration.
Here’s a post-shot routine that reverses those responses. When you hit a shot that comes out just the way you pictured it, get some emotion going. Give yourself a silent “Yes!” or some other expression of positive emotion. That reinforces the experience. Hold your finish and follow the flight of the ball until it stops. That imprints the image in your mind so that you can call on it when you face a similar shot or need to make the same shot in a more challenging situation. Store it in your “video library of greatest hits.”
If you hit a poor shot, instead of erupting in a storm of emotion, get somewhat detached and intellectual about it. I recommend that you say, “Hmmm. Interesting.” To remove yourself from the outcome even further, you can say, “How unlike me.” You’ll probably have an initial reaction of anger or frustration, but it’s important to clear the emotional response as soon as possible, because emotions cloud awareness.
If I asked you what you had for breakfast 2 years ago today, you probably wouldn’t remember. But if on that day your wife had told you she was expecting your first child, you’d remember the moment vividly. The same amount of time has gone by, but one experience was charged with far more emotion.
When we make a 4ft putt, there may be some relief but not usually a lot of emotion. However, when we miss a 4ft putt, there is often a reaction of frustration or anger. That emotional reaction imprints more strongly in our memory, which means the image of missing the putt is more likely to come to mind when we encounter a similar 4-footer. That undermines our confidence and we’re more likely to miss.
If you build up a stockpile of negative memories about a situation on the golf course (or elsewhere in your life), you will expect to mess things up when you encounter a similar situation. This is why it’s so important not to be consumed by negative reactions to poor shots.
In golf they don’t have judges rating the technical merit of the swing, as in diving or gymnastics or figure skating. They don’t give style points. The problem is that you’re playing “golf-swing” instead of playing golf. Go out tomorrow, don’t keep score, just have fun.
What we say to ourselves has a powerful impact on our game. That’s because we’re not just talking — we’re listening. What we hear about ourselves affects how we feel about ourselves, and how we feel about ourselves affects our performance.
After a round, spend a few minutes reviewing the good decisions and the good shots you made.
The golfers who are playing poorly seem to be dragging along, shoulders hunched, head down, looking at the ground, maybe even muttering to themselves. The golfers who are playing well have a bounce in their step. They walk tall, shoulders back, head up, looking straight ahead, maybe even whistling to themselves.
Instead, as you walk between shots, whether good or bad, maintain a good posture, shoulders back, taking full breaths. Humming or whistling softly can make you feel more relaxed and positive. Directing your eyes up and out creates a feeling of spaciousness and larger perspective that makes it easier to let go of the past and focus on the next shot.
No matter how you’ve been playing, maintaining a confident posture will make you feel more positive.
Even the greatest golfers have felt nervous in big tournaments. But they use the energy, like surfers use the energy of the waves. They thrive on the feeling, because it means they are where they want to be — playing well with a chance to win. If you weren’t playing well, what would you have to be nervous about? Taking nervousness as a sign that things are going well, instead of a harbinger of disaster, makes all the difference in the world.
It’s all too common for a player to make a mistake on the first hole and then be very distracted for several holes afterward.
There’s a twist. What looks like self-sabotage is actually self-protection. What we are protecting ourselves from? Stress, anxiety, discomfort. We’re protecting ourselves from leaving our comfort levels.
One way we protect ourselves from failure is by not trying. Linking our self-worth to how well we play golf is the problem. If our best game isn’t good enough, our self-esteem will take a beating. To avoid that, when the going gets tough, we quit, don’t give it our all, get careless. The subconscious logic is this: If I didn’t really try, I didn’t really fail. We might feel bad about losing a match, but it’s far less painful than feeling bad about ourselves.
Another way we sabotage ourselves in a stressful situation is trying a much harder shot than necessary, such as trying to carry a hazard that would require the best shot we ever hit. If we fail, we can blame the fact that it was next-to-impossible shot. We can rationalize that we didn’t really fail; we just made a bad decision.
Shambhala warriorship is not about conquering others and wreaking destruction. It is about having the bravery to overcome aggression, to manifest fearless gentleness.
Humor is the absence of self-importance. Humor brings a quality of lightness, an atmosphere of enjoyment. It does not refer to frivolous comments at someone else’s expense or the ability to tell a joke. Rather, it is a simple and genuine delight in participating in the game of golf. With humor we can avoid the self-defeating habits of taking ourselves too seriously or being too heavily focused on results.
In every situation, conduct yourself as if your 5-year-old child were watching you.