(The Second Reason the Mind is Golf's Natural Enemy)
The mind and body are directly and closely connected. Any action or movement must begin in the mind and instructions are then transmitted to the body. Most of the time this happens without any attention from the mind. Breathing is one example. Driving is another. We do these things without thinking about doing them or how to do them. We drive by habit and our minds are free to wander. Our autonomic nervous system controls our breathing. In both cases we can interrupt the autopilot and take control.
When we play other sports, the mind body connection is very effective. Our senses collect information, our mind considers, decides and sends instructions to the body. We react to the moving ball or person in an effective way. This is another kind of autopilot. Great athletes don't try to control how they do something, they just do it. The decision making and control is fast and open loop.
Golf is an unusual sport. The ball just sits there. There is no continuous action or the need to react to others or a moving ball. There is a considerable amount of time before and after each action. You have time to consider what shot to play and how to play it. You may try to control exactly how you swing to get the desired shot. You may be very deliberate about how you do it.
Unfortunately deliberate control is not effective. Our minds and nervous systems are not fast enough to instruct, monitor and adjust during the golf swing. The Tour player's swing takes from .93 to 1.23 seconds from takeaway to impact. The nervous system and your mind require 250 milliseconds to send a signal to your hand and receive a signal back. You can only make 5 round trips or less during the golf swing. This means that you cannot effectively control how you are swinging. Trying to control your swing will actually interfere with your swing!
A great example of the athletic autopilot versus the deliberate controlled way of operating is your signature. Sign your name like you do on a check or letter. You are probably in the athletic autopilot mode. Now sign your name again very carefully. Be sure that it is clear and neat and legible. You are probably in the deliberate controlled mode. How did you do on the careful signature?
With golf, your mind has time to consider, and depending on how important the outcome is to you, your mind will tend to go into deliberate controlled mode. This is natural. We all do it.
Unfortunately most of our instructors and golf writers are always telling us how to swing the club or execute the shot correctly. They draw our attention to how to do it in extreme detail. Then they ask us to think about one or more swing keys while we are playing the shot.
In a recent GolfPsych Tournament Player School, Level I, our beginning group school, I had a 65-year old grandfather, 15 handicap, who was attending with his grandson of 17. This gentleman had started playing when he was 10, encouraged by his cousins and uncles. Over the years he had played more and less and then after retirement, he began playing most every day in a money game with 14 or 15 of his buddies. He had developed the usual physical complaints and some unusual ones, most recently rotator cuff surgery. Fortunately the money games were full handicap.
His
GolfPsych Evaluation, taken online before the school, showed he had 5 of the 8 Champion Traits on the money. On the other 3 he was close. His main complaint was a lack of confidence because he doesn't practice regularly. He believed that if he could work on his swing more that he would play better and enjoy the game more. This meant that when he approached shots that were important, his anxiety level would rise and his expectations would fall. No matter how carefully he played the shot he was disappointed most of the time.
He did not understand that his mental approach to playing those shots in the careful deliberate mode was hurting his ability to play those shots to his ability. He was getting poor results and couldn't find his way out of this mental/mechanical trap.
I worked with him on the range that first morning on developing his mental routine and quickly realized that he was focused on his swing and making certain moves. He admitted that he never imagined the ball flying to his targets. His focus and effort was confined to the swing. His arousal level would rise 20 points on the
Mind Meter every time he moved into the shot and was over the ball. His history and his low confidence from that raised it. His determination to succeed made him continue to try to swing correctly. His whole body was tight and his big hands were murdering the grip. It was no wonder that he had torn his rotator cuff.
First I asked him to ignore where the ball went. Our purpose was to work on his mental routine not hit perfect shots. That would come later. Secondly I coached him in his breathing and relaxing, without thinking about hitting a shot. Finally the Mind Meter showed that he was relaxing and letting go. Then I insisted that he imagine his ball flying to the target in the way he wanted.
When he moved into the shot, the Mind Meter would go up. I stopped him and made him start over. This took several repetitions until he could move into the shot, set-up over the ball and stay relaxed. The change was visible, his body had softened.
Now when swinging he was to think about how it would feel to connect with the ball and send the ball flying to his target with a smooth, unhurried swing. No worries about where the ball would actually go. No trying to make the swing movements in a certain way. Let the athlete play the shot, trusting his athletic ability to do it without controlling.
The change was dramatic. After a few tries with this new attitude and lowered arousal, he really started connecting. Even better than that, his shots became much more consistent. His face showed his wonder. After playing golf in the deliberate controlled way for over 50 years he had found his athlete and a new way to play the game.
Of course his excitement raised his arousal and affected a few shots, but when he went back to relaxing and right thinking everything worked again.
The mind is golf's natural enemy. The logical mind accepts that if everyone says you have to think about your swing and be careful to do it the same everytime, this must be so. When your mind operates this way, it naturally limits your performance and consistency.
This nice gentleman is not fixed. He will always have to be wary of the mind's natural tendency to want to take over the golf shot. With practice and application in his money game, he will get better and better at relaxing and playing athletically. He doesn't have to beat balls to achieve this. He does have to work to do good mental routines for every shot and putt. I look forward to his improvement and increasing enjoyment of the game.
