What's a body to do when my head's all atwitter?
A draft from my upcoming book, Quiet Mind Golf
This is another excerpt from a draft chapter of my upcoming book, Quiet Mind Golf. Please let me know what you think in the comments or in an email to tim@oconnorgolf.ca
Watch this space for details on my Quiet Mind Golf Online Mental Game Series that starts in early May.
Information is also forthcoming on the Quiet Mind Golf Coaching Program that Nate Robinson and I will be running again this season for golfers seeking a comprehensive group coaching program on all aspects of the game. If you’re curious, here’s a link to last year’s program.
Whether I’ve talked to a tour player who has just won a major, or a 30-handicap woman who has put together nice round, the experience of these players is close to universal. During the round, they:
realized that they had it going
worried whether they could keep it going
thought about what the round means (they achieved a goal, succeeded, overcame, etc.)
thought about what the round could lead to (qualifying, a lower handicap, giving a speech, receiving congratulatory texts)
Due to an increased awareness of the “mental game,” many golfers think it’s bad to think these kinds of thoughts, and that if they were more disciplined, they wouldn’t have them. Instead, they should feel calm and controlled.
Good luck. We can’t help but have all kinds of thoughts. It’s the way our brains work. However, learning how to cope with a raging river of thoughts is a core skill that this book will be discussing.
On top of your busy mind, when you’ve got a good game going or you’re in contention in competition, your body is usually atwitter: you may find yourself motoring up a fairway like a speed walker, your hands are shaking, your heart is thumping, and you can’t feel your hands or feet.
Former PGA Tour player Paul Azinger said that during his first Ryder Cup, he was so nervous that it felt like his fingers were on fire, and he could feel his pulse in his eyeballs. Whoa!
Feeling nervous is normal. In fact, it’s a good and wonderful thing, especially in competition. Jack Nicklaus said he welcomed feeling nervous; it meant he was in contention. Feeling excited in casual golf means you’re playing well, you could win money or bragging rights and shoot a nice score. It’s one of the reasons we are golf nerds; we love that delicious, elusive feeling that—today, right now—we’re in it. It’s happening, baby.
Unfortunately, we also think ‘don’t screw it up,’ and, alas, that’s exactly what we often do.
The thoughts and feelings we experience in golf are not dissimilar to those we feel when we’re engaged in other kinds of performance. If you’ve ever given a presentation, a speech, or even had to say a few words at a wedding, it’s normal to feel nervous and have a head full of thoughts about what you’re going to say, and how it could go terribly wrong. It means you care.
There’s adrenalin at work, which is beneficial. It sharpens your focus, and provides that extra energy that takes a performance to the next level. Any seasoned performer will tell you that they have new reached heights of performance in a live setting that they could never reach in practice.
When I covered the 1994 Masters as a journalist, former tour player Mac O’Grady caused an uproar when he said at least seven of the world’s top players used beta-blockers to calm their nerves and improve their putting.
Nick Price said he was prescribed the drug for eight years up until 1988 to combat high blood pressure. He added, “If players use them for non-medical reasons it's the dumbest thing I know.” Price said that in tournament golf, you sometimes need a high level of energy, say eight out of ten, to bust a drive. But beta-blockers wouldn’t allow him to get past around three or four, said Price, who switched to an alternative drug with less damaging side effects. He went on to win three majors.
What I gleaned from Price was that elite performers are aware when they need to tamp things down and ramp them up. They’re acutely aware of what they are thinking and feeling.
Of course, the challenge for most golfers is: when it comes time to stand over a shot and hit it, how do I press pause on my intrusive thoughts and co-exist with a body that's thrumming and a heart that is drumming?
I believe we can learn a lot from Paul McGinley’s experience in the 2002 Ryder Cup. As McGinley approached the final green of his singles match with Jim Furyk, he learned that if he sank his 10-foot putt, he’d halve the match and Europe would retain the cup.
Legendary coach Fred Shoemaker said that in recounting the moment, McGinley said that if he thought about the situation, he would be overwhelmed. Instead, Shoemaker said McGinley focused his attention on rolling the ball over a spot. McGinley recalled the ball rolling over the spot, and then the next thing he knew people were running around jumping and celebrating.
McGinley relied on his process and used his skill of awareness to cope with the situation.
Unless we’re aware of what’s happening, we cannot adapt or change anything. "That of which we are not aware, owns us,” wrote Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who dramatically furthered our understanding of awareness.
In every part of our lives, we’re usually unaware of what we’re thinking, feeling, or doing. Instead, we run on autopilot. It’s natural. Otherwise, we’d be exhausted. In fact, we spend most our time daydreaming. Our minds flit from thing to thing to thing. It’s our brain’s default way of operating.
Similarly, once the brain learns how to do something, it carries out the task subconsciously, such as when you’re driving a car or walking down a set of stairs. (The next time you get in your car, be conscious of your routine as you sit inside, put on your seat belt, start it, etc. You’ll likely discover that you do the same things in the same order every time.)
Running on autopilot works for us most of the time, but not when we’re stressed, agitated or excited. That’s when we can get caught in the maelstrom of thoughts and feelings that can cause us to self-interfere.
Consider your own experience, which I’ll bet is pretty typical. When you are on a roll, headed toward a highly desired result, you likely become highly self-conscious of what you’re doing and worry whether you can keep doing it and get the result that you crave.
That’s when we become overwhelmed, tense up, second-guess, and try hard. What was fun and exciting is now hard work and even scary. The swing that felt effortless and reliable now feels laboured and wonky. We can no longer access our talent, skill and experience. Sadly, this is when we go from having it to losing it, and an exciting possibility ends up yet another disappointment.
As a golf nerd, you are likely asking the same questions as your suffering colleagues: What can I do to stop under-performing? How do I quiet all the noise in my head?
I believe the answers starts with awareness.
Like Paul McGinley, you must be aware of what you’re thinking and feeling—your internal experience. Without awareness, it’s almost impossible to respond appropriately to your internal experience and choose a useful course of action that will solve the puzzle that the course is presenting to you.
Awareness allows us to more skillfully navigate the white water of golf and life.
It’s not easy, especially when we’re stressed and feel excited, but with practice, we can develop the skill of awareness. It doesn’t mean that we can control our minds, but we can access our talent, skill and experience that got us to an exciting place, and provide us with the best chance to create and execute with a sense of freedom and mastery.
Hi Brad: Thx for your thoughts. The one that stands out to me is about experience. If you’ve been in certain situations before, you have a good idea of how you’re going to be reacting … and then you can adjust. It’s why the journeyman who finds himself in the lead Sunday at a major usually blows up. He's never experienced what’s happening to him before. The next time, he’ll likely handle it better. Thx
I enjoyed the excerpt. I can relate to what you are saying. Instead of focusing on golf, you realize what is happening and what it means to you. To some extent this cannot be avoided. To minimize it you need experience and process. If you have been in the situation before, failed or succeeded, it helps manage expectation, excitment and attitude. When the situation is new, lean into process. One shot at a time, a swing thought to keep you doing what you were doing before. I imagine having a good caddie really helps professionals deal with this.