Nature has a way of showing us the perfection of this world. Without any need for right and wrong, good and bad, it simply just is. The deer is a deer with no need to explain himself. The trees just are. The entire ecosystem is without any sense of separateness, it has no me.
If our awareness is in the now, nature can be the teacher to show us the perfection of our life and sway us from "me," the big trouble maker. This is something to attempt to tap into when you're playing a round of golf. Our nature when we tee it up is to let our competitive side come out, which can be a lot of fun as well as what causes the frustration inside of us, or perhaps a better way to say it would be -- it starts the war within us.
When we tee it up for score in a tournament or a casual game, something is at stake. Something matters. This is true with many of the things in our life, but at the same time, what is that something?
It all comes down to these two things: The stuff we desire and the stuff we fear. The stuff we desire adds to our existence and the stuff we fear takes away from it. The part of us that cares is the "me," what many refer to as one's ego. I prefer to call it "me," the big trouble maker. When, "me" gets too involved with your round of golf by wanting to hit better shots and score lower than what may be happening, the war within is like fighting with King Kong.
To step outside of your tremendously noisy mind is the best practice and it takes quite a bit of practice to even recognize what is going on during these battles. We get stuck inside of our own made up stories. Tour players will recognize this kind of stuff pretty quick when it's happening. Chances are it isn't happening very frequently when they're playing well. They back away from the shot at hand and start the whole pre-shot routine over again.
What could they be saying inside their heads when this is happening? I have heard enough stories first hand to be able to best explain what some of these players are doing. They are searching for a quiet mind. Some would say that they try to get real positive and call on a subconscious trigger. One that will recall a past shot that went very well for them. Truth be told a positive mind is a noisy mind too -- perhaps noisier than a negative mind and the trigger thing that was made popular by Nick Faldo when he was playing well has its ups and downs.
Let's simply say your trying to play from the past when you do this and it isn't going to work all the time. You could draw from it a bit as Faldo did. It's just no substitute for the here and now.
Stepping out of the battle is like watching from the outside. For me it's similar to going out to my favorite restaurant, Regina's Pizza, in Boston's North End. There is a feeling involved in the whole process where you park, the walk through the old city streets, the smell of the place when you finally walk in. I don't even mind the wait outside listening to the characters of the neighborhood.
The pizza is great, but once it's gone what do you have? A memory. Do you want to ruin that memory by complaining or forcing something to happen that hasn't happened to your liking? Do you want to invent a problem that perhaps isn't there? No, of course not. One way to shrink King Kong down to the size of a squirrel monkey is to let the what is going on stuff just happen with out trying to disrupt it. Like Nature, if you can learn to do this from time to time you will begin to realize that you will flow better in the harmony of things.
Who knows? Perhaps a few putts will drop and the score will too.
If you would like to read more of my swing theory go to 7mythsofgolf.com.
