As I watched the Nissan Open this year, I heard an interesting comment made about Robert Allenby. Gary McCord was being his typcial good-natured self, and while talking about some of the changes that Allenby was making in his game; remarked about how Allenby was trying to be himself. McCord asked, "What's that mean?" It can strike a funny nerve when phrased that way, but I think it also points to a saliant point.
Often when people tee it up, they forget what they are there for and who they are. I for one have thought that I am a mind and body and a heart, yet those are things that have just been given to me. I am not my mind, I am not my body and I am certainly not my thoughts. What McCord may have meant about Allenby was the sense that we can so easily get sucked into the behavior of our ego. The ego, or our self image, is constantly seeking the approval of others.
Since, "energy flows to where your attention goes"; the thinking that is created by this is always an anticipation of what may come and it is heavily influenced by what just occurred in your past. We all have an ego self, and to play golf with that ego -- or self image intellect -- can often turn us away from our true-self. Your ego can easily suck you into thinking and thinking and thinking. All of this thinking gets us away from what we are there to do. Our decision making becomes much clouded.
An undisciplined attention can easily be a derailer during a round of golf. What happens next is our intentions are lost in a new energy field. The ego self is at the helm and next to arrive is a whole new set of emotions headed up by fear in a lot of cases. Fear of hitting it O.B., fear of missing 3 or 4 footer. You find yourself second guessing a break that isn't even there.
Being yourself, like what Robert Allenby is doing, is so much more powerful. There is no struggle for approval, you're just out playing. You see there's thinking and there is doing. There is anticipation and there is participation, we have all experienced this in golf and in life. Your ego self is the one that anticipates, it's nothing more than a self image anyway so what else does it have to do besides create some more image. Your true self is free and unbounded by the world as we think we know it. If you think you're this quantum meat soup you call a body, think again.
We are so much more and we are connected and a part of everything around us. The true self is beneath no one and yet unassuming. It stands without judgment and has nothing to fear for everything that it faces is simply a new place and a new experience. Your true self is that state of bliss that you have felt when you pure one from 190 yards into the wind to 5 feet. It's the one behind the 30 footer you just knew was destined to find the hole.
On a separate note; I wrote an article a few weeks back describing a PGA Tour player that had at one time just simply focused on his mental game instead of his golf swing. I had said that although I wasn't sure what was going on with him now, he had for a long time experienced significant results from his attention to his intention. That player was Scott McCarron; Scott got in touch with me this past week and wrote that he has undergone a surgery that had occurred due to a broken rib. He said that he was working on his short game and will be coming back strong. I can only imagine that he will be a modernization of Dr. Gil Morgan. For those of you that may not remember, Gil Morgan was out from a back surgery for a whole year and was only able to work on his short game. The following season he won a bunch and became the first player to go to double digits in the U.S. Open. The wind got him as it did most everybody that year except Tom Kite. I'm interested to hear again from Scott after he reads my book.
