Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game by Dr. Gio Valiante Page B
Authors: Dr. Gio Valiante
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whatever the circumstances of your round, your attention should be just as singly devoted as a tour player’s. And the first step toward developing that focus is to immerse yourself in knowledge about the course and its individual holes and in developing a strategy to play it.
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If you recognize yourself in these different reasons for playing golf, don’t be surprised. Such orientations are common in many professional endeavors. Public speaking often fills people with the same type of fear as golf. Even in this most dreaded of activities, people whose reason for speaking is to present information and enjoy themselves typically fare better than people whose reason for speaking is to have the audience perceive them as smart or to avoid looking like a babbling idiot. Musicians who strive to perfect a piece of music perform with greater passion and fluidity than do musicians who crave audience approval and fear being booed off the stage.
The key distinction I am drawing can be thought of as the difference between striving to perfect one’s task versus striving to look good in front of others or fearing their disapproval. This is a distinction that many golfers know very well.
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words of a champion: davis love iii,
2003 at&t pebble beach pro-am
Davis went into Sunday with the lead, but was overtaken by Tom Lehman who shot a front nine 30. In the last group standing on the eighteenth tee, Davis needed par to tie, birdie to win. With water running down the left fairway of the par 5, Davis ripped a 315-yard drive down the middle and then hit a 4-iron onto the green for a two-putt birdie. How was he able to hit such great shots in such a demanding situation? The answer is that he wasn’t playing the situation. He was playing the shot, and thinking about a target.
I saw what Tom [Lehman] was doing, sure. And I was nervous. But when I was on the 18th tee I was focused on the point on the skylight on the tent on the right side of the fairway. That was my target. I was trying my hardest to focus on the target, not the situation. And after that, once I had my target, just trying to make a fearless swing.
Standing on the tee box, the situation tried to force Davis’s mind into bad, ego-oriented questions about the situation such as, Why am I nervous? What if I hit into the water? What if I lose the tournament? However, his discipline, training, and experience allowed him to shrug off those negative thoughts and focus on a target. He decided instead to focus his mind on a target that, at that point, was the top of a sponsor’s tent in the distance. Asking himself, What is my target?, Davis then made a fearless golf swing at his target resulting in a perfect drive that he followed up with a perfect second shot into the par 5 for a two-putt birdie, and his first professional win in three years.
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Everyone has heard about the “back of the mind.” Golfers often say things like, “I was trying to concentrate on making the putt, but in the back of my mind I was thinking ‘Don’t push it.’” The achievement orientations that I discuss in this chapter often constitute those things that creep into the back of a golfer’s mind. So, if you are one of those golfers who has distracting thoughts that lead to hesitation or apprehension, read closely. Identify your own achievement orientations and you can unravel a significant part of the psychological mystery that plagues many golfers who come undone on the course.
Let’s have a close look at this psychological process that psychologists consider critical to human motivation. Achievement goal orientations—the underlying reasons why golfers play golf—can be separated into two main categories: mastery orientation and ego orientation. Only one of these approaches will work regardless of the circumstances, only one will work for any golfer regardless of ability, only one will make it possible to play fearless golf.
mastery golf
Golf to me is a livelihood in doing
----
If you recognize yourself in these different reasons for playing golf, don’t be surprised. Such orientations are common in many professional endeavors. Public speaking often fills people with the same type of fear as golf. Even in this most dreaded of activities, people whose reason for speaking is to present information and enjoy themselves typically fare better than people whose reason for speaking is to have the audience perceive them as smart or to avoid looking like a babbling idiot. Musicians who strive to perfect a piece of music perform with greater passion and fluidity than do musicians who crave audience approval and fear being booed off the stage.
The key distinction I am drawing can be thought of as the difference between striving to perfect one’s task versus striving to look good in front of others or fearing their disapproval. This is a distinction that many golfers know very well.
----
words of a champion: davis love iii,
2003 at&t pebble beach pro-am
Davis went into Sunday with the lead, but was overtaken by Tom Lehman who shot a front nine 30. In the last group standing on the eighteenth tee, Davis needed par to tie, birdie to win. With water running down the left fairway of the par 5, Davis ripped a 315-yard drive down the middle and then hit a 4-iron onto the green for a two-putt birdie. How was he able to hit such great shots in such a demanding situation? The answer is that he wasn’t playing the situation. He was playing the shot, and thinking about a target.
I saw what Tom [Lehman] was doing, sure. And I was nervous. But when I was on the 18th tee I was focused on the point on the skylight on the tent on the right side of the fairway. That was my target. I was trying my hardest to focus on the target, not the situation. And after that, once I had my target, just trying to make a fearless swing.
Standing on the tee box, the situation tried to force Davis’s mind into bad, ego-oriented questions about the situation such as, Why am I nervous? What if I hit into the water? What if I lose the tournament? However, his discipline, training, and experience allowed him to shrug off those negative thoughts and focus on a target. He decided instead to focus his mind on a target that, at that point, was the top of a sponsor’s tent in the distance. Asking himself, What is my target?, Davis then made a fearless golf swing at his target resulting in a perfect drive that he followed up with a perfect second shot into the par 5 for a two-putt birdie, and his first professional win in three years.
----
Everyone has heard about the “back of the mind.” Golfers often say things like, “I was trying to concentrate on making the putt, but in the back of my mind I was thinking ‘Don’t push it.’” The achievement orientations that I discuss in this chapter often constitute those things that creep into the back of a golfer’s mind. So, if you are one of those golfers who has distracting thoughts that lead to hesitation or apprehension, read closely. Identify your own achievement orientations and you can unravel a significant part of the psychological mystery that plagues many golfers who come undone on the course.
Let’s have a close look at this psychological process that psychologists consider critical to human motivation. Achievement goal orientations—the underlying reasons why golfers play golf—can be separated into two main categories: mastery orientation and ego orientation. Only one of these approaches will work regardless of the circumstances, only one will work for any golfer regardless of ability, only one will make it possible to play fearless golf.
mastery golf
Golf to me is a livelihood in doing
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